


funny how love is

by messofthejess



Series: rebel rebel, Simon Simon [2]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: (now 5x more gratuitous), Bisexuality, Canon-Typical Violence, Dancing, Emotional Roller Coaster, Falling In Love, M/M, Multi, Music, Queen References, Sexuality Crisis, this is nearly 40k of Simon suffering i'm so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-13 15:21:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 39,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18471661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messofthejess/pseuds/messofthejess
Summary: Taking back Baz's records was only the beginning. Now Simon is stuck with a tangle of emotions toward his not-so-sworn enemy, and he doesn't know how to deal with them. For Simon, all feelings have ever done for him is made it easier for his magic to explode.At least he can fall in love to a killer soundtrack.





	1. Anywhere You’re Bound to Be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BasicBathsheba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BasicBathsheba/gifts).
  * Inspired by [rebel rebel](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15485421) by [BasicBathsheba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BasicBathsheba/pseuds/BasicBathsheba). 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bisexual panic, a stinky attack, and learning more about your crush's ex-crush. Honesty is what I need from you (but maybe not too much).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Funny how love is the end of the lies  
>  When the truth begins tomorrow comes  
> Tomorrow brings tomorrow brings love  
> In the shape of things  
> That's what love is that's what love is_
> 
> ~Queen, "Funny How Love Is"
> 
> Welcome to part 2 of Simon's side of the Rebelverse! Although she's going to insist on not accepting it, I consider this monster to be a belated birthday gift for the inimitable BasicBathsheba, whose work makes mine here possible. I hope you enjoy it, my friend!

Summer is the most hideous season of the year.

My T-shirt is clinging to my chest before I make it to the front gate of Watford, and climbing the stairs in Mummers with my bags is beyond awful. To top it all off, the room is _boiling_. I throw open every window except the one right next to Baz’s bed (smell of the moat sets him off), trying to get some relief, but all I succeed in doing is making the curtains flutter.

All I want to do is melt into my comforter and dream of it being winter so I can cool off. Penny is down on the Great Lawn, though, and I don’t want to keep her waiting. Plus I kind of enjoy the idea of watching everyone else return to Watford before the kick-off picnic. People-watching is something I can always enjoy doing, especially with Penny. I swap out my dingy T-shirt for a fresh one, try to shake the excess sweat out of my hair, and head back downstairs.

Pen is actually sitting on the stone steps outside Mummers with her earbuds in, much to the annoyance of some third-years trying to haul their belongings inside. I tap her on her bare shoulder, and she pulls one earbud out and looks up at me with a grin.

“About time!” she exclaims before jumping up and crushing me in a hug. I’d protest, given how sweaty we both seem to be, but it’s too good to see her after being gone for three months that I can’t.

“I missed you, too, Pen.”

“Here, get your fix.” She takes her free earbud and slips it into my right ear, not caring that it’s meant for the left ear. “I can’t believe you go without music for the whole summer.”

“I manage.”

“Not well.”

“Never said I managed well, did I?”

“Don’t be an arse.” Penny lightly smacks my arm, but she’s grinning at the same time. “Let’s go someplace less obtrusive.”

She tugs her shorts down over her thighs and sets off down the path toward the Great Lawn. It’s a bit awkward to stay alongside her and keep my earbud in place—she has much shorter legs than me, but always walks like she’s five minutes late to something—but we make it down to one of the bigger oak trees and claim a spot in the shade for ourselves without any trouble.

“How was your summer?” I ask, because there’s not much to report on my end. All the care homes start to blend together after a while, and I doubt Penny wants to hear about my exploits in sneaking out to Oxfam and Tescos.

“Brilliant,” Penny replies. “Got a ton of reading done, and Micah and I actually called each other on our mobiles for the first time.”

“That’s big.” I know Penny and Micah have mostly been talking to each other on Skype, but talking on the phone is different. A bit more intimate, I think. Not to mention that it’s expensive calling to America. “Do your parents know about him yet?”

“Dad does. Mum was too busy teaching summer courses at the university to inquire too much into my personal life.” Penny shrugs. “When she finds out, it’s not like she can really blow her lid. I’m sixteen. Perfectly normal age to be dating someone.”

“Yeah.” Which reminds me—I should probably try to track down Agatha soon. Appropriately enough, Penny’s mobile turns over to a Blondie song while I crane my neck to look around the lawn for her.

“You didn’t try to talk to Agatha this summer, did you?”

“How was I going to talk to her? I don’t have a mobile.”

“You know where she lives. I hear love letters are still considered romantic.”

I try not to snort at the idea of me writing a love letter. I’m generally shit with words, although writing for me is generally a little easier than speaking. But a love letter, let alone one Agatha would want to read? Forget it.

Things have been weird between us as it is. I spent most of the end of last term finishing yet another quest, so we didn’t get a lot of time together like I think she wanted. Every time we held hands, it felt like I was holding onto the string of a balloon that wanted to float somewhere else. She was there with me, yet not really _there_.

I can’t pretend like I was completely present. Plenty of other thoughts were occupying my mind, no matter how much I tried to push them away and not think. Thoughts about Baz which followed me through the summer…

“You’re going through a rough patch with Agatha, aren’t you?” Penny’s question yanks me back to the present.

“What makes you say that?”

“We text. She suggested some things. I can never get a straight answer out of her, though.” Penny shakes her head.

“So she’d rather talk to you about problems in our relationship than to me.”

“I’m sure that’s not it, Simon. Sometimes you need a sounding board, you know? I’ve talked to you about things with Micah.”

“That’s different, though,” I argue. “You and Micah are on solid ground.”

“You admit there’s a problem, then.”

Merlin, it’s far too hot to be dealing with this now. I clap my hand to the back of my neck to mop away some of the excess sweat, but it’s futile. I’m still melting even under the shade of this tree. “Yes, Pen, there’s a problem. Several problems, really, I think—”

“ _Baz!_ ”

A streak of blond hair goes flying down the main path toward the front gate, and Agatha flings herself into the arms of someone dressed in all black. Baz wriggles out of her grasp in three seconds, holding her at arm’s length while he fixes his Wayfarers. It must be close to 30 degrees out, and this prick is wearing a full-on leather jacket like it’s the middle of autumn.

He looks cooler than I’ll ever feel. And he somehow got taller over the summer, too. Damn him.

Penny’s playlist rolls over to a new song.

_This thing called love_

_I just…can’t handle it_

Agatha’s fiddling with something bright on Baz’s lapel that keeps flashing in the sun. I squint to get a better look at what it might be—some kind of pin I guess—but then Agatha just squeezes Baz in another hug that he looks thoroughly uncomfortable being in and I can’t see it anymore.

_This thing called love, I must get ‘round to it_

_I ain’t ready_

_Crazy little thing called love_

“Simon?” Penny nudges my shoulder.

“Not staring,” I murmur.

“I didn’t accuse you of staring.” I don’t have to look at Pen to know she’s smirking. “But you might want to dial it back a bit—Baz will combust if you look any harder.”

“Nah.” Baz starts toting his bags up the path once Agatha lets him go again, and he doesn’t look like he’s singed or smoking anyplace despite what Penny says. I wonder if he can stand wearing leather in this heat because he’s so cold otherwise (because he’s a vampire, not because of personality). His Wayfarers slide down his nose a little when he walks by the tree, and I know his eyes are locked on me the whole way. Most of the time he’s subtle, but not today.

_There goes my baby_

_She knows how to rock ‘n roll, she drives me crazy_

_She gives me hot and cold fever, then leaves me in a cool, cool sweat_

“Can you seriously please pick a different song?” The question comes out a lot harsher than I mean to, mostly because my throat is suddenly dry. Penny jumps a bit.

“Yeah, of course, sorry.” She fumbles for her mobile and flicks over to the next track on her playlist, but Baz is already gone, faded out through the shimmering heat. And of course that song is now stuck in my head for the rest of the day. Brilliant.  

****

The back-to-school picnic is pretty much the same as it is every year. The food is spectacular—bless Cook Pritchard and the literal magic she works in the kitchen, especially with chicken salad—and the Great Lawn is always packed with first years shaking with excitement at being someplace brand new. It’s all old hat to me now, but the anticipation is still infectious.

There was one thing different about the picnic, though, so I guess it wasn’t completely uneventful: Baz. Namely, that people kept coming up to Baz, people I didn’t think knew who Baz _was_ , and saying hello. He looked just as confused about the new attention as I felt at first. But after a while, he got bored, and every new person was greeted with a slow, haughty once-over before going through a fist bump or high-five. I dumped a whole plate of fresh fruit on the grass because I was watching him so hard.

Penny spotted what was causing all the commotion well before I did. Baz wore his leather jacket to the picnic, and she got a good look at the shiny thing I’d seen on his lapel earlier in the day. A rainbow flag pin.

Baz is gay. Confirmed gay. And now he’s out to everyone at Watford without saying a word.

My stomach started fluttering an hour into the festivities, but I hung out for a half-hour longer because Penny insisted I stay. Agatha was nowhere to be found—we still hadn’t said hello to each other—and no one else was keen on talking to me, so I excused myself and went up to the room so I could lie down. The fireworks look better from up in the tower on Mummers’ Hall, anyway. It’s like you’re right at eye level with the explosions.

I leave the room dark and flop down on my bed. Flashes of green, yellow, and blue splash up on the wall through the windows from the fireworks, and I watch them while waiting for my stomach to quit doing the wild dance routine it’s picked out for tonight. Ideally I’ll be asleep before Baz comes up here, but I don’t think that’s happening.

I shouldn’t be this excited to know that Baz is gay. Merlin, it’s not even a _surprise._ Penny would probably say I’m working off of outdated stereotypes, but Baz has never once come off as straight. For all his hard-edged punk veneer, he’s also soft. His shampoo smells like someone distilled a forest into the bottle, and whatever he slaps on for cologne probably costs ten times as much as I’ve ever spent on clothes in my life. He’s got a poster of Bowie up on the wall. He puts far too much effort into his hair to keep it neat. His side of the room is always achingly neat. The list of reasons why it makes total sense for Baz to be gay is far, far longer than his list of reasons why he could be straight (mostly because that second list would be a blank sheet of paper).

I have no right to be thinking so much about this.

Agatha and I are still together. I _love_ her, even when it’s hard sometimes. Our time at Watford will be over soon, and when that time comes, we’ll start our life together. We’ve never really talked about it, but in the middle of battling ogres and facing down selkies, that’s what keeps me going through: the idea that I’ll get something like a happy ending.

Only…that prospect doesn’t seem as real anymore.

Baz is always in my endgame. It’s inevitable that we’ll face each other down in some dramatic fashion (there will be flames—I always see the flames), the fate of the World of Mages coming down to one of us making the wrong move in our duel. But whenever I try to fit Agatha into the hypothetical future where I somehow survive, she flickers in and out like a bad TV signal. Baz never fades.

Maybe I wasn’t meant for a happy ending after all.

The door to our room swings open, and Baz slips inside. He pulls out his desk chair to sit, unlacing his shoes and tossing them at the foot of his bed. His leather jacket gets shrugged off too; the rainbow pin on the lapel winks at me with every firework outside.

“All right?” he asks, blinking at me through the dark.

“Why d’you ask?” My throat sounds like I’ve swallowed sandpaper.

“You never pass up the opportunity to gorge yourself on free food.”

I shrug. “Didn’t feel like it tonight.”

“I can walk you down to the infirmary.”

“Baz, I’m fine. Just not hungry.” Why is he acting so concerned about this? “Have a bit of a headache, put me off from eating.”

He stands up and comes around his bed, still peering at me like I’m a hospital patient. Why is he so concerned about this? I’ve been sprawled on my bed in far worse condition than this, and he was more worried about his Political Science homework and planning hijinks with Dev and Niall.

“I’ve got Walkers stashed under my bed. Plain and salt-n-vinegar.” A massive silver firework bursts outside our window, lighting up all the hard angles of Baz’s face. “In case your appetite comes back.”

I can’t think of what else to say to that. “Thanks.”

“Don’t take it as an open invitation. They won’t be there forever.” He turns away and heads for his dresser, pulling open a drawer and taking out his pajamas. There’s a soft clunk and some scratching as Baz fiddles with something I can’t quite see, and then I hear the familiar pop of a speaker coming to life. He’s plugging in his music.

_Once there was a way to get back homeward_

_Once there was a way to get back home_

_Sleep pretty darling, do not cry_

_And I will sing a lullaby_

McCartney’s voice soothes me instantly, and I forget all about the fact that I should change into something other than jean shorts to sleep in. Baz slips into the bathroom and closes the door behind him. It’ll be at least another fifteen minutes until I’ll be able to get in and do anything, but I don’t think I can stay awake that long. Skipping one night of brushing my teeth shouldn’t kill me.

By the time the lyrics circle back around to carrying that weight for a second time, my eyes are closed and I’m hovering right on the edge of sleep. Golden slumbers, indeed. The last thing I hear is Baz coming out of the bathroom, and I swear he’s singing to himself.

_Oh yeah, all right_

_Are you gonna be in my dreams tonight?_

I don’t think I really have much choice in the matter.

****

“How many times do I have to say I’m sorry, Aggie?”

We’re riding back to school in one of the Wellbeloves’ cars (A Town Car, I think? I’m rubbish with cars), and her driver had the discretion to put up the partition between the front and back seats. I can still hear the muffled radio from the other side. Prince is playing. “When Doves Cry.”

“Please stop apologizing,” Agatha mumbles over her knuckles. She’s leaning on her hand and gazing out at goats milling over the hills surrounding Watford—Ebb must have her herd out to graze.

“What can I do to make you stop sulking, then?”

“I’m not sulking!” 

“You’ve barely said a word to me since Saturday, and now we’re back at school—”

“Can’t you let me be upset? Just let me be upset!”

I shake my head and massage my forehead. “They were only flowers,” I say under my breath.

She sniffs. “They weren’t _only_ flowers.”

Agatha had a dressage competition this weekend, and since it happened to fall on her birthday, she invited me to go along with her. I’d been given a bouquet by Dr. Wellbelove to give to Agatha after she went up on the podium. Apparently I was supposed to wait until after the ceremony to give the bouquet to her, and not, as Agatha so loudly put it, “charge into the arena like an overexcited colt” and startle her to where she fell off the second-place step on the podium. Forgive me for trying to be spontaneous.

Oh, and I guess she told me how this was supposed to work at least three times and I still managed to fuck it up. Shame on me.

I’ve already apologized multiple times. There isn’t a rule anywhere that says you have to accept your boyfriend’s apology when he messes something up, I suppose, but there comes a point where it’s more than a little ridiculous on your part to not accept. I think she’s looking for something to make her sad, and I can’t figure out why.

She doesn’t say anything when we get out of the car, and she doesn’t let me carry her duffle back up to her dorm. I’m left by the gate, knapsack over my shoulder, more annoyed than ever.

I try not to let this eat at me. But I know she’s talked to Baz about it, because he keeps giving me weird sidelong glances when we’re studying together in the room that I think I’m not meant to notice. And knowing that Agatha has, once again, talked to someone else about our relationship issues instead of to me really sets me off. Never mind that it’s Baz. I don’t need him to know how much of a failure I am.

By the time Thursday rolls around, my magic is leaking out of every pore, and I don’t even try to reign any of it in. Miss Possibelf moves Penny and me to a table in the back of the room for Magic Words, passing by more often than usual to check on what we’re doing.

“You have to let this go,” Penny urges under her breath, right after whispering “ ** _Another one bites the dust_** ” at the chess pieces on our table. The white bishop topples over next to the pawn I managed to knock down.

“I would let it go if _she_ would let it go.”

She sighs and waves her hand at a black knight, which goes flying off the table and pings into Rhys’ wheelchair across the aisle. “Normally I’d validate your feelings, but you’re only upset because Agatha is upset. And Agatha is upset because you didn’t measure up to expectations that she may or may not have articulated.”

“They were only flowers.”

“Clearly they meant a lot more—”

“You think I don’t know that?!” Several people turn around in their seats, including Baz, who tilts his head at me like an inquisitive cat. I make a show of knocking over the other black knight and a couple pawns so Miss Possibelf doesn’t wander over again, then turn back to Penny and lower my voice. “We’ve been in a rut since before the last end of term. Right before we got Baz’s records back. I just thought maybe we’d have a weekend away from school and things would sort out back to how they used to be.”

Penny blinks at me. She creeps me out when she does that: behind her thick lenses, it looks like she’s blinking in slow motion. “Simon, you should know better than anyone else that things don’t go back to how they were. All they do is move along, and hopefully forward.”

She’s right, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. My magic builds up a head of steam throughout class, until I see Agatha toward the front of the room laugh too loudly at Baz and put her hand on his forearm. I don’t know who I’m more jealous of in that moment, or if I’m jealous of either of them. Either way, every ugly feeling I’ve been failing to tamp down boils over.

I go off.

Heavy, acrid smoke billows throughout the classroom. Miss Possibelf and another student wrench open the windows for ventilation, but it somehow seems to make the problem worse. About half the class sneaks out the door with their jumper collars pulled up over their noses before she dismisses the rest of us early, and I duck out into the hall with Penny.

“I’m sorry,” I blurt out to her. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

“You don’t have to—” Penny turns her head to cough, “—apologize to me—great snakes, that smell is _awful_ —but you might have to issue a blanket apology to everyone else in Magic Words.”

“I don’t think my apologies mean much anymore. Not when everyone knows I’m gonna do it again.”

She stops in the middle of the hallway, turns on her heel, and eyes me up and down. “You’re coming with me,” she says firmly, tightening her grip on my hand before setting off again.

“Why?” All I’d really like to do now is be alone, maybe go down to the Woods and kick around a bit.

“Because you’re in the middle of a pity party. An undeserved pity party, but a pity party nonetheless. So we’re going to my room, and I’ll defenestrate Trixie if I have to. Then we are sitting on my bed, cuddling up with snacks, and watching bad American movies together until you feel better.”

I know better than to stop Penny when she’s determined. And we haven’t had a proper movie night since early last term, so we’re overdue for one. I follow her down the hall and out toward her dorm, dodging glances from anyone who’s managed to hear about my explosion. (I swear, the Mage banning mobiles at Watford only made more people get them—that’s the only way news could travel so fast here.)

When I get back to the room that night, Baz keeps glancing over at me in my bed, a mixture of pity and worry on his face. He turns the music down and keeps it mellow, as if he’s worried aggressive punk rock will set me off again. I’m secretly grateful.

****

For all the magical creatures I’ve faced down in my life, I can’t really say I hate very many of them. The Mage taught me early on to cultivate empathy for the diversity of creatures in our world, and to consider myself fortunate to have the chance to see and meet them, even if some of them want to kill me.

But skanks? I think I could safely say they’re my least favorite.

I think I upset the colony when I was doing sword practice in the Wavering Wood last week. Usually I don’t practice in the Wood since one of the dryads told me that the sound of metal singing through the air upsets some of the trees (sounds weird to me, but I respect what she says), but Baz was parked in the room and I didn’t particularly feel like annoying him. He’s been in a weird mood ever since he came back from that illicit Halloween party in the Weeping Tower reeking of vodka and weed. Even more broody than normal.

Anyway, I ended up getting too close to a fainting rosebush—exactly what it sounds like, they’re ridiculous—and a couple of skanks ran out from underneath it. One of them gave me a somewhat evil look, but I didn’t think very much of it at the time. Clearly, I touched a nerve.

They come barreling into the dining hall one night in the middle of November during dinner, just this massive sea of white fur. Skanks can’t see very well, so they clunk into the legs of tables and students at random, snarling when someone won’t move out of their way.

“ _It’s the Humdrum!_ ” someone shrieks, and the dining hall breaks out into complete pandemonium. People start scrambling up onto the tables. Rhys starts wheeling around with an armload of plates, hurling them at the skanks to fend them off. Seems to be working, so I snatch up as much cutlery as I can hold in my fists and jump up on my table, taking care not to step on too much food.

“Snow, what the hell did you do?” Baz yells at me, because he somehow correctly figured out that I’m to blame for all this.

“Absolutely fucking nothing!” Penny joins me up on the table with a stack of plates. I fling a fork at a skank that seems keen on taking out Baz’s right ankle, just close enough to cause a breeze and make him glare up at me.

“ _Liar_ ,” he mouths at me before turning around and casting a “ ** _Get back!_** ” spell to repel more skanks.

“Oh Merlin, they’re spraying!” Agatha cries. “I can smell smoke everywhere!”

I don’t have the time to follow Agatha’s logic, only enough time to scoop up more silverware while Penny fires off spell after spell to beat the skanks back. Every last one of them seems bent on getting to me. Didn’t realize that chasing off two of them meant I’d piss off the entire colony in the Wavering Wood.

“Have any ideas?” Penny calls over her shoulder.

“Uh.” I can feel my magic prickling under my skin—not enough to properly go off, but enough to where I’ll feel edgy if I can’t release it somehow. My wand’s in my hand, though I haven’t shot off a single spell. With my luck, I’ll think of something and end up putting everyone to sleep—

Wait.

“ _AUGH!_ ” Niall yells, and I know he’s been sprayed. Baz has got a skank raised over his head in a cloud of magic and looks ready to launch it halfway across the dining hall out of sheer frustration. What he doesn’t see is another skank at his feet, white fluffy tail raised and ready to strike.

“Got it! Pen, get behind me.” I step around Pen, raise my wand, and sweep it in a slow arc from one side of the hall to the other. “ ** _Golden slumbers fill your eyes!_** ”

A gold fog cascades from the ceiling, growing thicker and thicker as it rolls to the floor. Some students drop to their knees and start coughing, but the skanks slowly start to relax and waver a bit on their feet. Then they drop like furry dominoes in waves all over the dining hall, lying on their sides or their backs, tiny pink bellies rising and falling with each deep breath. Looks like no one human was affected.

Huh. This might be the most effective spell I’ve ever cast in my whole time at Watford. And I didn’t go off.

“Simon! That was brill—” Penny grabs me by the shoulder and turns her head in a coughing jag, “—brilliant! What made you think of it?”

“The Beatles,” I murmur, looking down at Baz. He’s sniffing himself and rolling his eyes so hard he’s probably reliving his childhood. Fuck, he must have gotten sprayed when I wasn’t looking.

“Another song lyric? Merlin.”

“Excuse me? Students! Everyone, your attention please!” Miss Possibelf’s voice rings out through the dining hall. I can barely make out the silhouette of her in the doorway. “I know it’s a bit hard to see, but I need all of you who were sprayed to make your way to the infirmary. Those of you who were lucky enough to stay clean, I ask that you report back to your dormitories immediately.”

I don’t go back to Mummers Hall right away. Instead, I follow everyone to the infirmary, where we learn the cure for getting skanked. Apparently, it’s not as simple as casting “ ** _Clean as a whistle!_** ” You need someone pure of spirit to wash your hair with magical paste. And apparently “pure of spirit” means you need to be a virgin, because magic never wastes an opportunity to completely humiliate people.

Actually, magic isn’t what humiliates me about this situation. It’s that Agatha more or less outs the fact that we haven’t had sex.

“Just, Simon, you’re so _rough_ ,” she explains, as if that word choice somehow makes this all better. “You always yank and get my hair tangled.”

(I got the idea in my head that it might be romantic to learn how to braid Agatha’s hair when we spent our first holiday break together. She always complains that her curls get clumped together as it is. What I didn’t expect was that Agatha would squirm so much in my lap, or that it would be so hard to cross three bunches of hair over each other into a neat braid. YouTube videos make everything look easy.)

“Penny, will you wash mine? Simon, you can do Baz’s.”

The look Baz gives me makes me want to dive straight into the Catacombs and keep digging deeper until I’ve burrowed as far the fuck away from Watford as I can manage. Merlin and Morgana. I could keep things under control so long as we kept a solid physical distance from each other, and now Agatha is suggesting I wash Baz’s hair. That’s about as intimate as you can get and still be considered platonic, I think.

“Snow, are you virginal and up for washing my hair?”

As if I have a choice.

When we get to the room, I make myself busy by heading to the bathroom and collecting towels. There’s no need for more than two, but I need to do something to keep my hands from trembling in anticipation.

“Tissue?” I hear Agatha offer to Baz.

“Why do we need those?” Penny asks.

“To block out the smells! Don’t tell me you want to hover over someone reeking like cat pee.”

I come back out of the bathroom laden with towels to find all three of them with tissue stuffed up their noses. They all look ridiculous, but the smell of garlic and vomit radiating from Baz is making my stomach turn. I scramble for the tissue box and shove two up my nose before I vomit myself.

“Can we stop for a moment to appreciate that you need a virgin to cure skank smell?” Baz asks of the room while flicking through his Spotify playlists. While he’s busy, I tuck a towel around his neck, careful not to brush against his skin.

“I don’t want to appreciate anything about this,” Agatha frowns. I’ve never agreed with her more about anything.

The bass kicks in on Baz’s playlist, and I take that as my cue to get started with rubbing this paste in. There’s no way to do this that isn’t sloppy, so I just take a huge dollop from the tub and sort of smack on top of his head. Baz has such thick hair that working the paste in is a massive challenge—I think more of it ends up on his forehead than his scalp.

“No need to take my head off,” he snarls, rolling his eyes back to glare at me.

“Sorry.” I take another smaller glob of paste and smear it around a bit gentler this time. I’m not used to being delicate in doing anything; my hands are kind of too big to manage that. “Penny, how long do I have to do this for?”

“About fifteen minutes, or until the paste turns brown.”

Baz and I sigh at the same time, a great heaving thing that perfectly sums up our collective annoyance.

“Oh hush, it goes fast. Look, Agatha and I are almost done.”

I pointedly decide not to look over at Pen and Agatha and instead turn my full attention to Baz. Now that most of the paste is on his head, it’s a lot easier to rub it in and slide it all around. I work my fingers in circles, digging down as close to his scalp as possible without scratching (for once, I’m thankful I chew my nails). He seems to like this a lot better: he’s not sitting as upright as before, and he rolls his head back when I pull all his hair out to a point and roll it back on top of his scalp.

At one time, he blinks up at me through half-lidded eyes, and I immediately flash back to the night after I got his records back. When he was all sleepy and soft, like every ounce of vitriol had bled out of his body. I don’t think Baz remembers this night at all; he’d have sworn me to secrecy the next day if he did. But I remember. I thought about that night throughout the whole summer when I was in the care home…

Thankfully, The Clash keeps me from wandering too far down a dangerous line of thinking.

“ _You say you stand, by your man. Doo doo doo. Tell me something. I don’t understand. Doo doo doo_.” I don’t usually sing in front of other people, but I can’t help myself. This song is too catchy. “ _You said you love me, and that’s a fact. And then you left me, said you felt trapped._ ”

Baz shifts around under my hands and tilts his head back to raise his eyebrow at me. The whole effect is rather ruined by him being upside down, honestly. And by the fact that he’s openly grinning at me.

“ _Well, some things you can explain awaaaaay_ ,” I sing at him. “ _But the heartache’s in me ‘til this day! Did you stand by me?_ ”

“ _No, not at all_ ,” Baz replies together, perfectly in tune.

“ _Did you stand by me?_ ” we harmonize. “ _No way._ ”

“What the fuck is happening?”

Baz and I snap out of the moment to find Penny and Agatha staring at us both. I’ve never seen Penny look bewildered in my life, but that’s the only description I can come up with for her face. Agatha, on the other hand, looks downright gleeful.

“I have no idea,” she says, “but it’s extremely cute.”

Cute. My girlfriend thinks it’s _cute_ that I’m washing a bloke’s hair and singing along to The Clash with him. If this had happened last year, I might have accidentally yanked some hair out of Baz’s scalp in anger—I thought for the longest time that Baz was angling for Aggie, but with him being out as gay, that’s obviously not a problem anymore. (Not that it ever was a problem, now that I think about it. Baz didn’t just decide to come back this year as gay; this is something he’s thought about for a while.) Still, what the hell am I supposed to think about this?

I go back to washing Baz’s hair, but whatever arcane magic that bound us together for that one moment in music has vanished, and nothing but sheer awkwardness settles in the room. New Order comes on the playlist next, and I feel Baz’s jaw clench at the synth drums. It’s a total relief when Penny and Agatha slip past us to go rinse out Agatha’s hair in the bathroom.

“Skanks seem like a pretty lame thing from the Humdrum to send,” I say. I’ve no idea why I’m saying this, or why I’m insinuating that the skank attack wasn’t somehow my fault even though Baz figured out it most likely was. No point in pretending.

“Mhm.”

Oh, thank Merlin he doesn’t want to talk. The paste is turning brown anyway, so whenever the girls finish up in the bathroom, we can go in. I decide to fill up the room with the soft squelching noises of continuing to rub circles into his scalp and twirling out thin little ropes of hair. I can let myself enjoy this. Baz probably, no, definitely enjoys this. Agatha thinks it’s cute. There’s nothing wrong here.

_Whenever I get this way, I just don’t know what to say_

_Why can’t we be ourselves like we were yesterday?_

_I’m not sure what this could mean_

_I don’t think you’re what you seem._

I really fucking hate this song now.

“It’s, uhm.” Fuck, my throat’s gone dry. I need tea in the next ten minutes or I think I might die. “It turned brown. So now we, uh, rinse it out.”

Baz turns around in the chair to face me. A thin trickle of paste crawls down his neck, and I reach a finger out to catch it so it doesn’t muck up his collar. I swear he shivers at my touch.

“Oh,” he says, not breaking eye contact. “Right. Yes.”

To hell with the tea. I think I need a long, cold shower.

I knock on the door to the bathroom to let the girls know we’re done. When I nudge open the door, Penny gives me a once-over with her arms folded across her chest, leaning against the sink. Agatha is perched on top of the toilet, hair all wrapped up. They probably finished up ages ago and didn’t bother to interrupt Baz and I.

Penny slips by first, still searching me from head to toe like she’s scanning me for bombs. Agatha is far more casual, giving Baz a squeeze on the shoulder before kissing me on the cheek. I almost turn away, because she never kisses me on the cheek, and I’m so used to creatures attacking me from the side. Somehow I manage not to flinch.

Baz is taking off his school shirt when I turn back to him, and every ounce of blood rushes to my head so fast the tiles on the shower wall start to jiggle.

“What are you doing?” My voice is too high, and I sound utterly panicked.

“Calm down. I’ve a T-shirt underneath.” Baz is cool about this, because of course he can be cool. He’s been gay for years; nothing about this situation is out of place for him. “I just don’t fancy getting my shirt soaked.”

How have I never noticed his back before? I go to all of Watford’s football matches, and I’ve watched the back of his shirt so much I can picture every detail if I close my eyes and think. Some of the footballers do weight lifts and training outside of practices, but I don’t think Baz goes. Still, he has the strongest-looking back I’ve ever seen on a bloke without being too bulky. All defined planes and lines.

I’m staring too hard. And Baz is watching me stare too hard. He turns to more fully face me, my eyes drop to his chest, and fucking hell, he has pecs—

“How are we going to do it?”

If I live through this afternoon, I’m ripping my brain out of my skull and tossing it into the moat. Might as well go down there, seeing as how it’s already in the gutter.

“How are we going to rinse my hair?” Shit, he’s pissed that I was staring and wasting time. “Sink or tub, which do you think is easier?”

“You’re too tall for the sink.” My voice keeps crackling, ugh. “Tub, I guess. I guess you’ll have to, er, get on your knees.”

There is absolutely nothing heterosexual that’s going to come out of my mouth for the rest of the day. Possibly ever again. 

“Or we could just detach the shower head.”

How have I used this shower for over five years and not known that you could take the shower head off? Baz hands it to me and leans his head over the tub, paste-clogged hair hanging heavy around his face.

What happens next is pure embarrassment.

Everything seems to be going along fine for a couple minutes, combing my fingers through his hair along with spraying to get all the paste out. A brown puddle swirls in the tub in front of us, and I try not to focus on how gross it looks. Then I make the mistake of asking Baz a yes-or-no question, to which he shakes his head like a dog after coming in from the rain. We both end up soaked, Baz snaps on me for being an idiot (for once it’s justifiable), and I finish rinsing out his hair being far rougher than I meant to be. And I cap it all off by gawking at him for far too long while waiting for my brain to process that Baz wanted to shower, which meant he had to get naked.

I barely pause to grab my jacket as I bolt out of the room. Not as though I really need it; I’m blushing hard enough that my whole body is burning. My stomach snarls at me to head to dinner, but in a rare change of pace, I ignore my hunger pangs. I charge up to the ramparts instead.

****

I gave myself the flu. That’s what I get for running around with a wet head for two hours after the shower incident, yelling my head off to the gargoyles out on the ramparts until I’d blown off enough steam to come back inside. By that time, dinner was well over, so I had to make do with a bag of Walkers I’d stolen from Baz’s stash while he was down in the Catacombs. (I’ve no idea if it counts as stolen, since he never reneged the offer he’d made about his crisps back in September.)

Both Penny and the infirmary nurse reminded me that I didn’t give myself the flu just _because_ of running around outside with a wet head (“That’s pneumonia, Simon.”), but it certainly didn’t help.

Being sick means pretty much everyone except Baz has been keeping their distance. Penny has kept me supplied with tea and notes from class when I haven’t been able to summon the energy to go. I’ve actually gotten ahead on homework for a change, and I’m studying for an exam in Political Science that probably doesn’t need as much attention as I’m giving it, but I’ve nothing better to do.

That’s another interesting thing about being sick: for all the complaining Baz has done about me using tissues (I use either too few or too many depending on the day) and sniffling, he hasn’t made much effort to leave the room whenever possible. He only goes out for meals, class, or football practice; all his regular socialization with Dev and Niall seems to have been put on hold. I’m oddly flattered. His company may be snarly, but at least I’m not alone.

Niall comes over one afternoon to steal from Baz’s stash of Walkers and hide out from Dev, who’s apparently too absorbed in chatting with his French girlfriend to do much else. I learn more in that afternoon than I have in the first half of term.

First thing: Baz and Premal were not dating. (The image of Penny that lives in my head can finally stop retching at that thought I’ve been carrying around for months.) Premal just sold weed to Baz, which is far less interesting but still concerning. I always kinda thought he stole part of his aunt’s stash one weekend when he went home and brought it here.

I also find out how Baz learned he was gay. At first he’s irritated with Niall and me—“How do people _not_ know? It’s just there, it’s a thing.”—but then he actually gives us an answer.

“Professor Hollow,” he says after a long beat.

Niall starts choking on a crisp—clearly this name means more to him than to me, and this revelation is something really funny. “I don’t know him.”

“He’s the Classics professor,” Niall explains once he recovers. “He’s really young and cool. Sometimes he sits with the Centaur at meals?”

I’ve never taken Classics, mostly because I don’t have much patience for our general Literature class as it is. But I’ve got a vague picture of what Professor Hollow looks like; I’ve got a good memory when it comes to faces. “Brown hair? Glasses?”

Baz nods slowly, the barest hint of pink rising to his ears (he blushes in reverse: starting at the ears and working up his cheekbones).

“Oh, yeah, he is pretty fit.”

I shouldn’t have said that; Baz will use it as ammunition later.

“He listens to the Talking Heads, doesn’t he?” Niall asks.

This explains _so much._ Baz has such strong personal ties to his music, anyone who shares remotely the same interest is bound to capture his attention. Now that I think about it, he was downright obsessed with Classics in our third year, taking extra sessions with Penny and, according to Pen, lingering in Professor Hollow’s office long after she’d left. Then Baz withdrew from Classics for our fourth year and never spoke of it again. Guess he got his heart broken.

Also, Niall definitely has a thing for Baz. He keeps goading Baz about who he might like, to which Baz snarls that everyone in this school is revolting. I can tell Baz is lying—he tries to force too much eye contact and ends up staring right through people. At the moment, he looks as though he’s trying to will Niall to melt into the carpet, but it’s not happening. And Niall, for his part, is grinning so hard his freckles might pop off his cheeks. After a while, it gets to be too much to deal with, and I pull up the hood on my sweatshirt and roll over to nap.

Baz must have been lucky to just know he was gay. Seems like he was born self-assured in so many ways—that must come with being a Pitch. He had a crush on a professor, which is kinda weird but still falls within the realm of normal, and then he pushed through that and owns that he likes blokes. Simple as that.

I want things to be that simple for me. But all I feel sure about is how unsure I am.

****

The Mage is back.

He’s been gone most of the semester with his Men, and no one knows where he’s been aside from a handful of professors who deal with some of the administrative stuff for Watford while he’s out. There’s this constant undercurrent of chatter in every class with people wondering what the Mage is up to. Most everyone thinks it’s got something to do with the Humdrum. Others think it has to do with easing tensions between him and the Old Families, like a goodwill campaign. Nobody has an idea that isn’t some far-fetched rumor. All we know is that he’s returned to Watford, and he’s even been sitting with the professors at dinner.

And all I know is that he won’t talk to me.

Ever since taking Baz’s records back, my willingness to help the Mage has dropped to an all-time low. He chose to target Baz, someone whose family is arguably the biggest thorn in his side regarding reforms he wants to impose via the Coven, and confiscate things that held more sentimental importance for Baz than technological threat. (I’ll say it again—record players can’t be hacked.) All so he could exercise a little bit of control. My temple throbs every time I think about it.

Yet…I’m still the Chosen One. Maybe I’m no better than a pawn in the Mage’s long game, but I still know how to fight. The Humdrum has been my responsibility since I was eleven, and I’m not giving up on that. I just need to know what’s going on. I need to be _informed._

“It’s possible that he doesn’t know any more than you do,” Penny tells me over tea three days later.

“He’s the Mage!” I shout through a mouthful of scone. “Not knowing something could be the difference between him keeping his power and losing it!”

Agatha sighs into her teacup and takes a dull slurp. She’s exhausted by me talking about anything to do with the Humdrum or the Mage, but I’m not here to entertain her. Right now I need to get my frustrations out before I set off another accidental magic bomb.

“Simon, I get it. You’ve been sitting idle for three months, it’s getting close to Christmas, and you felt like you haven’t made any progress.” Penny reaches over and plucks a scone off my plate. “But think of how well your studies have gone without being interrupted every other week for some mission or other.”

“Sometimes it’s good to take a break from things. When it all gets to be too much,” Agatha mumbles.

Penny and I exchange a glance. Somehow I don’t think she’s talking about the Humdrum at all.

I go and sit outside the Mage’s office on Friday afternoon once lessons are done. My stomach growls because I’m skipping tea to do this, but thankfully I snuck a few biscuits into my bag at lunch for this exact moment. I munch on the biscuits, not caring if I scatter crumbs everywhere, and hum my way through _52 nd Street _once I finish. (Baz has been indulging my requests for music that I want in the regular rotation, even though I know he still doesn’t like Billy Joel that much). I get through the whole album once and am on the second run-through of “Honesty” when the door to the office creaks open. The Mage steps out, beat-up leather duffle bag hanging from one arm, tugging his gloves on.

“Sir,” I say, scrambling to my feet so fast my trainers squeak against the floor. “Sir—”

The Mage doesn’t wear earbuds, so I know he heard me. But he walks away as though he heard nothing at all, boot heels echoing like gunshots on the tile.

He ignored me. He fucking _ignored_ me.

Fine.

Everyone is still at tea, and it’s drizzling outside, that awful cold November stuff that wants to be snow but can’t bother to make the effort, so I’m largely left unbothered as I charge down to the Wavering Wood. The Sword of Mages comes when I call it—the one thing that seems to be keen on listening to me these days—and I twirl the hilt in my hands, settling into a fighting stance in front of a thick, old maple tree.

The dryads will hate me forever for hacking at an innocent tree, but it’s better than lashing out on something with flesh. Chunks of bark fly away from the trunk, some toward my face, and that only makes me swing harder. I work up a sweat in no time, so I shuck my coat off and leave it behind me in the damp grass. It’ll be soaked by the time I decide to go back inside.

This feels good. My magic is leaking everywhere because I’ve kept my frustration about this bottled up since September, but for once I don’t feel self-conscious about it. So I make a big stink. So I’m angry. I’ve got to let my emotions out somewhere, and if anyone doesn’t like it, they can bitch about it to my face.

Someone comes strolling across the grass from the football pitch, hands in their pockets. I know who it is immediately—the absolute last person I want to talk to right now. My right hand is starting to cramp from gripping the sword so tightly, and I can hear the blood pounding in my ears. I should stop now before I pass out; I’m working myself way too hard.

“I’m sure the Mage will be ecstatic when you break his sword,” Baz calls out as he draws near.

Fuck working myself too hard. I’d rather faint than talk to Baz right now. Summoning every ounce of strength left in me, I swing the Sword of Mages even harder, like I’m a lumberjack intent on felling this oak with sheer willpower and brute force.

“Oh, I touched a nerve, did I?” He’s walking closer, and his eyes rake me from head to toe, analyzing me the way he analyzes everything: cool, detached, and with the air of being distinctly better than everyone else just by being born.

I don’t answer, but I do keep staring him down over my shoulder. Sweat is dripping down over my brow, or maybe drizzle. Not quite sure.

“Snow.”

His voice makes me stop and drop the sword to my side. Baz almost sounds…concerned. Worried. Definitely a bit thrown off kilter, judging by how he keeps a close eye on the blade.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. Those aren’t words I ever expected to come out of his mouth.

I turn away and kick a holly bush, no doubt upsetting some tiny woodland creature (as long as it’s not a skank again).

“Nothing,” I reply, which is the biggest load of shit.

Of course Baz sees right through that. “Clearly something, unless you’ve chosen to give up magic and become the world’s most ineffectual landscaper.” He steps under the tree and leans up against the splintered bark, hands still in the pockets of his leather jacket. A few strands of hair are plastered to his forehead; the rest is pulled back off his face in a low ponytail. Must have just gotten done with football practice. “Come on, what’s got your knickers in a twist? Is it the Mage? I thought he was gone.”

How did Baz not notice the Mage’s return? “He came back. Then he left again before I got a chance to talk to him.” I throw the sword down in the dirt, disgusted. “I waited outside his office for an _hour_ , and he just walked right by me.”

Baz frowns at me. He doesn’t know I’ve all but given up on the Mage, but he’s no doubt taken note of the fact that I haven’t been doing anything outside Watford since the end of last year. I’ve actually been living in our room for a change.

“Well, I’m sure he was busy.” That’s a lie, and we both know it. “What did you want to talk to him about?”

“The Humdrum. Wanted to know if he’d discovered anything. He’s been gone so much. But he’s not talking to me for some reason, he won’t tell me anything ever, and I don’t know why, or if I did something—”

My magic flares up so quickly a few oak leaves catch on fire above Baz’s head, making him flinch. I clench and unclench my fists, willing the magic to draw back down to something more manageable. And here I thought I’d worked all of my stress out of my system.

“Snow, calm down.”

Doesn’t Baz know that’s about the worst thing he could say when I’m like this? I want nothing more than to calm down, but telling me to do that only makes me spiral further out of control. My lungs are already working like I’m running a marathon, although I’m standing perfectly still. The pressure in my head is building into a headache, the kind I always get right before I go nuclear. I need a distraction. Something, anything—

“Come with me.”

Baz turns around and walks out of the Wood. I think he expects me to follow him like a puppy. What the fuck?

…well, I _did_ ask for a distraction. Honestly, I think I would have gone after him even if he hadn’t asked. Baz leads, and I follow. That’s how it works with us.

He turns around long enough for me to catch up with him. Then we walk together across the campus, matching step for step through the soggy grass. Baz has his Watford football scarf—the one piece of school spirit he allows himself to display—wound around his mouth to block the wind, and I’m starting to wish I’d had the same idea. I swear I can feel my lips chapping as we go along.

“Where are we?” I ask while Baz brushes his fingers along the hallway inside the Weeping Tower. There’s nothing structurally wrong with the tower despite looking like it might crumble to pieces any second; it’s been held up in an awkward curve by magic for three centuries now. What sets me off is the ominous aura of magic that doesn’t belong to me or Baz. I can feel it hovering right behind a moth-eaten tapestry at the end of the hall depicting a fat golden hare. Powerful and old, like it might yank us both back in time if we’re not careful.

Baz doesn’t answer me at first. Instead, he pushes aside the tapestry after another minute of feeling around (I get the idea that he doesn’t want me to know he’s been here before) and nudges open a door that appears out of the stone wall.

“You tell me,” he says, sweeping me inside with his other hand.

This…this doesn’t make sense. I know for sure the Weeping Tower doesn’t connect to the dining hall. I’ve spent enough time lurking around Watford in its secret passageways (last year, mostly, when Baz was being dodgy and I had to follow him around) to know this. But there’s no mistaking the gleaming gold wooden floors and the long banquet tables and benches set up like they are just before the holidays, with the green and red plaid tablecloths and everything. The only thing missing is the mountains and mountains of mouthwatering food. All of this is just an illusion, though. Has to be.

“It’s—I—what?” I manage to get out. “How—”

“What does it look like to you?”

So the room changes for everyone who looks at it. An illusion based on desire, shifting based on what the viewer wants to see. We’ve been talking about these in Advanced Spellwork. “It looks like…it’s the dining hall.” Merlin, I must sound stupid to him. “But it’s not. We’ve passed the dining hall.”

Baz raises an eyebrow at me and turns away toward one of the windows. I run my hand along one of the tablecloths, feeling one corner between my fingers. This is seriously sophisticated illusion work. I might be absolute shite at managing my own magic, but I can recognize and appreciate good spellwork when I see it. All this means, though, is whoever did all this didn’t want anyone to see the room for what it really is. There’s something hidden just below the surface—

A rancid smell hits my nose, like a skank farted in a basket of oranges. I turn around and see Baz with a long cigarette hanging from his mouth, a flame still dancing on his fingertip.

“Is that weed? Are you smoking weed?” I ask. Does he have a fucking weed stash down here? I thought he was done with that shit after our third year. Is this what he leaves to do at night when I think he’s headed down to the Catacombs?

“We’re not in the dining hall.” Of course he’s ignoring my question. Prick. “We’re in the Watford nursery.”

The room shifts around us. Tables melt into the floor and are replaced by cribs that line the walls, along with toy chests and play mats. All the glass on the domed ceiling fills in with dark blue paint like the night sky, and golden hares that match the one on the tapestry outside hop to life. Curtains drop into place around the windows, heavy ones that would black out the room for naptime. I do a lap of the room to check it all out. Yeah, this is the real room, its true form. Nothing sparkles at the edges like the illusory dining hall.

“It moved. Did you do that, or was it some kind of self-defense spell the room put on itself?”

“The room did it. I didn’t know if it would show itself or not.”

I have a way of forcing enchantments out of things. Penny thinks the sheer force of my magic intimidates lesser forms of magic into submission; I like to think I’m just lucky.

“I didn’t know Watford had a nursery.”

Baz takes a long drag off the cigarette, then lets a plume of smoke trail out from his lips. “We don’t. Not anymore.”

I quit pacing and sit down across from him on the blanket rumpled up on the floor. The weed must belong to the same person who left the blanket behind, so it doesn’t belong to Baz. He’d never leave a blanket behind if it could be used on his bed. Which means he’s stealing someone else’s weed. Asshole.

“Why not?”

Baz takes another drag and blows the smoke right in my face, making me cough. Like I said: _asshole_. “The room got absorbed by the building in 2002, after my mother and I were attacked by vampires here.” He says this as though it means nothing at all, like he’s reciting a history lesson. As though none of this happened to him. Maybe he doesn’t think it happened to him, not really. The Baz who was bit long ago probably doesn’t resemble the boy who’s sat next to me at all.

Then he holds the joint out to me as an offering. Baz’s fingers half look like joints themselves, so long and spindly. I’ve half a mind to snatch it away before his eyes look any more misted over than they already do. Grayer than London fog, they are.

“I’m not going to peer pressure you,” he explains, the lightest edge to his voice. “I just thought it might calm you down. My mistake for forgetting you’re an uptight Boy Scout.”

I bristle at that. “Why do you care?”

“You seem stressed. Thought you might like a distraction.” Are vampires fucking psychic? “And you seem to like mysteries, so I brought you to one.”

“It’s just a room, though. What’s the mystery?” As if I haven’t puzzled part of it out already.

Baz settles back on his elbows, the joint balanced between two fingers. If he doesn’t get it up and away from the blanket soon, I really will take the joint away from him.

“Why did the room feel the need to hide itself?” he asks.

He doesn’t bother to answer the question, and neither do I. We sit in silence for a minute or two. This never happens; we don’t let silence settle between us. There should be music. Why doesn’t he have his mobile with him? The room was supposed to be a distraction, but now that’s not enough.

I snap the joint away from his hand and put it between my lips. I don’t think I’m supposed to bite down so hard on the end, but I don’t care. Baz made it look easy. This should be easy, right? Just inhale, take in the smoke, and hold—

Oh, shit. Too much, too much, too much. I catch the joint in my palm before I spit it out on the blanket and cough harder than I’ve ever coughed in my life.

“Good boy.” Baz smiles at me all lopsided. Weed must make his fangs pop, because I can see them poking out a little over his lower lip. Cute.

“Fuck you.”

“I’m amazed. Always thought you were half dragon, with how you always blow things up and set them on fire. Dev once said you’re like a great clobbering beast.”

Why did he have to go ruin the moment? “Do you always have to do that?” My eyes are watering, only partly because of the weed smoke. “Do you always have to go for the lowest blow?”

“Yes.”

“Well, how about you don’t.”

“Come on, Snow, don’t be like that. It’s not like I hurt your feelings.” As far as he knows. “Just a bit of harmless banter between lads.”

That’s how it always is with Baz, isn’t it? He never once thinks that I might have a reaction to anything he says. I’m just meant to take every little jab, like some great clobbering beast, until I’ve had enough and go off so that everyone around me can suffer the consequences of my feeling too much. Because that’s what it is: I feel so much that I’m scared of letting anyone see, so it all gets bottled up until the cap can no longer stay on without exploding.

“You’re such a twat,” I spit at Baz. “I know all I’m good at is going off, but why do you have to constantly give me shit about it?”

Baz stares back at me, lifting his head up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That’s the problem, innit? I never do. I never think. I just go off. I just chase down what’s coming at me.” Feels like I’m retching out every last nasty dreg that’s been swirling in my chest for the last few months. “I’m not supposed to understand, just supposed to kill. That’s what the Mage thinks. That’s why he won’t talk to me, why he won’t tell me anything.”

“The Mage is too wrapped up in himself to think anything of the sort.”

“He won’t _talk_ to me!” What about this is Baz not getting? “He’s avoiding me! And Aggie doesn’t get it. She tells me to stop talking about it, and I try, I really do, but that doesn’t matter, either.”

I stop to take a breath. The weed split me open like an overripe husk, and all the rotten fruit is spilling out. No use in stopping it now.

“I’m a shit boyfriend.” I curl up tighter, my kneecaps practically stuffed in my mouth. “I try to be good enough for her. I try, but it doesn’t seem to work, and I just don’t get it. She’s my _future_. My endgame. So…why aren’t I good enough?” My throat thickens no matter how hard I swallow. “I’m only good for killing.”

Baz is staring at me like he’s been struck by lightning. The hairs on his forehead are curling back to their normal wave, only adding to the appearance of him being shocked. “Crowley, Snow. How long have you been thinking this?”

“I haven’t. I don’t think.”

“What?”

“I don’t think,” I repeat. “It hurts to think about the things you want or can’t have or the things that upset you. So I just…don’t.”

What I don’t tell Baz is how much it hurts to think about him. All these feelings that rise whenever I look at him have nowhere to go. He can’t be my future. The only endgame I’ll get with Baz is one where it really is my end. Because he’ll win. He always wins. There’s no contest.

“Thanks for showing me the room. I’m going to go find food.” My legs are shaky when I stand, and I all but sprint to get the hell out of there. When the door closes and the tapestry swings back into place behind me, I choke back a sob and keep running.

****

“Are you still going to the Wellbeloves for the holidays?”

We’re done with exams, and the end of term is upon us. I came by Penny’s room to walk with her down to our final tea of the year before she heads to Hounslow, but somehow I ended up sitting on her bed while she muses over what to pack for two weeks at home. It’s all right, though: she’s got a better collection of tea than what the dining hall serves, and we can play music here once she throws up her muting spells. The Kinks are moaning about how Father Christmas ought to give them some money, but I’m not in the mood to find them funny.  

“Yeah, I’m going. Not like I have much choice in the matter.”

“You always have a choice, Simon,” Penny says, weighing two different jumpers in her hand. I secretly hope she picks the yellow one—it makes her look like an actual ray of sunshine.

“I can’t very well stay here at Watford.”

“I meant that you could come home with me.”

“Pen, I love you,” I say, draining the rest of my tea from her _The Future is Female_ mug, “but your house is beyond crowded. Your mum would have a conniption if I showed up unannounced—”

“—not true, I can tie her down to the kitchen sink—”

“It _is_ true. Plus you’re leaving right after Christmas to visit Micah in the States, aren’t you?”

“You can fit in a valise, right? I’ve an extra one.”

“I’m not flying to Boston to be your third wheel.”

“Let it be known that I offered.” She shrugs and sets the yellow jumper in her valise. “Only because you and Agatha still don’t seem to be doing well. Wouldn’t want you to ruin your holidays with awkwardness if you didn’t have to.”

“The holidays won’t be ruined.” I wiggle off of Penny’s bed and go for the electric kettle she has set up on her dresser. I’ll definitely need more tea if this conversation goes where I think it will.

“But you admit it might be awkward.”

“It might. That’s how it is, though, right? Sometimes you hit rough patches and you…you work through them together.”

“Nicks and Slick, Simon, you sound like a forty-something with three kids and a mortgage hanging over your head. You’re sixteen! If you don’t like the person you’re with, you can just let them go with no obligation.” Penny puts a hand on her hip. “You _do_ know that, right?”

“’Course I do!” I take a sip of tea despite it being scalding hot. My tongue instantly burns numb, which gives me a convenient excuse not to keep talking.

“I’m only saying. You and Agatha have seen happier times, even you can admit to that. It’s not fair to either one of you to stay if you’re not happy.”

“Are you suggesting I break up with her over the holiday? ‘Happy Christmas, Agatha! Oh, and by the way, we’re finished and I’m going back to Watford tonight.’ I’m sure that will go over _splendidly._ ”

“You’re putting words in my mouth. And sarcasm doesn’t become you, Simon. That’s more of Baz’s…”

Penny trails off and gives me a long, analytical look. I meet her eyes over my mug of tea and sip as quietly as possible. Her playlist rolls over into “Liar,” which is far too on the nose for this situation.

“Do you have anything you want to tell me, Simon? About Baz?”

“Can’t think of anything.”

“Agatha and I both saw you when we did the hair washing. You two sang “Train in Vain” like you were best friends.”

“Why can’t two blokes sing along to The Clash without it being gay?” 

“I never said anything about it being gay,” Penny raises an eyebrow. “And there wouldn’t be a problem if it was.”

“Yeah, well, maybe there’s a problem anyway.”

There’s knocking at the door, and Penny scrambles to grab her mobile and silence it until Agatha calls out, “It’s me! It’s me! Not the Mage. Promise.”

“We’re coming back to this,” Penny gestures between us as she goes to open the door, and a stone sinks into my stomach. Great. She won’t forget about this conversation, either; Penny can never let anything go.

Agatha steps inside, all done up in her pink and white winter gear. I can still see the denim jacket she co-opted from Baz sticking out from under her puffy coat—whether it’s an extra layer or purely for rebellion, I don’t know. 

“I thought you might be here,” she says, nodding to me. “I would’ve met you at Mummers, but the wind is absolutely dreadful—”

“Sorry to make you come all the way down here,” I cut in.

“It’s no trouble!” Agatha’s voice is far too bright and cheerful. “No trouble at all!”

Merlin, I hate how Penny is scanning both of us over right now.

“My things are all packed back at my room, so.” I stand up from Penny’s bed and wobble a bit since my one leg had gone to sleep. “Is your mum down at the gate? You can go and wait in the car if you want.”

“No, it’s fine. We can walk together.”

I blink, trying to make sense of how Agatha could complain about the cold but be perfectly fine with walking me all the way over to my dorm. All I want to do is leave, though, and put Watford behind me for a while. I need some space from everything here, which is a first.

“Take care, Simon,” Penny whispers in my ear when we hug each other goodbye. “And if you need to talk over break, steal Agatha’s mobile. She has my number.”

“Brilliant, will do.” I clap her on the back.

Agatha offers her hand when I close Penny’s door behind me, and I take it more out of habit than anything else. A few of our classmates who are still in the dorms wish us a Happy Christmas and New Year as we pass by. I mostly nod back, while Agatha gives out her best parade wave and winningest smile like it costs her nothing.

“Wait here,” I tell her once we get to Mummers, as if she has any choice but to linger outside. (I’ve still no idea how Penny managed to break the ward to get in here, and as time passes, I don’t think I ever want to learn.) All I’ve got to do is bang in there, grab my far too expensive luggage (a Christmas gift from the Wellbeloves last year), and get out.

I swing the door open, and the music playing is _nothing_ like what Baz normally plays while he’s in the shower. I can hear the pipes in the bathroom and smell his woodsy shampoo, so I know that’s what he’s up to. The music floating out of his Bluetooth speaker is far too trancelike to be from his typical playlists, though.

_If you should ever leave me_

_Though life would still go on, believe me_

_The world could show nothing to me_

_So what good would living do me?_

_God only knows what I’d be without you…_

My suitcase is sitting right there on the bed, along with a duffel for the inevitable onslaught of gifts (the Wellbeloves are generous to the point of being uncomfortable). All I’ve got to do is grab them and walk out. Baz and I have never exchanged goodbyes before Christmas, only barely acknowledged that we wouldn’t see each other for about two weeks. This year, though, I feel like I ought to say something.

“Baz?” I knock on the bathroom door and press my ear to the wood.

A bottle clatters to the bottom of the bathtub, followed by a hushed, “ _Fuck._ ” I try not to imagine Baz scrambling under the shower for his lost bottle. “Yeah, Snow? What is it?”

“I, uh.” This stupid wavering song has wormed its way into my head and made me forget how to think. “Wanted to wish you a Happy Christmas is all.”

“That’s all?”

“Yeah.” Shit, it’s like being a first year all over again and not being able to speak full sentences. “I’m leaving now, but I felt like I had to get that in, you know? So, uh, yeah. Happy Christmas, Baz.”

All I hear for the longest time is water rushing through the pipes and splashing into the bathtub. If I close my eyes, I can imagine he’s leaning his head against the tiled wall, thinking of a response. Maybe I’m an idiot for hoping he has something to say in return. I’m just about to walk away when I hear him reply faintly through the door.

“Happy Christmas, Simon.”

He called me Simon. Not Snow. Somehow, all the holly-decked halls and strings of lights in the world haven’t put me in the holiday spirit as much as that does.

I’m still grinning when I meet Agatha downstairs. She gives me a questioning look, but I don’t think too much about it. How can I when, for the first time in ages, I feel like I’m glowing?

Snow is puffing down all around us, a true winter wonderland. I shake my head to get it out of my hair (I never wear hats—I look like an utter tit in one) right before we step through the gate where Agatha’s mum is waiting in their Land Rover. Out of the corner of my eye, I swear I catch a glimpse of someone pale standing at the top window on the turret of Mummer’s. I can’t help but wave, just to see if I get a reaction.

And what do you know? Baz waves back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SONGS FEATURED IN THIS CHAPTER: 
> 
> “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” – Queen
> 
> “Golden Slumbers” – The Beatles
> 
> “When Doves Cry” – Prince
> 
> “Train in Vain” – The Clash
> 
> “Bizarre Love Triangle” – New Order
> 
> “Cello Song” – Nick Drake
> 
> “Honesty” – Billy Joel
> 
> “Father Christmas Give Us Some Money” – The Kinks
> 
> “Liar” – Queen
> 
> “God Only Knows” – JR JR


	2. Break Your Heart So Suddenly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Talking to magic rabbits is not a replacement for therapy, but it's a start. Humiliating yourself in front of your crush is a time-honored tradition. Breaking up is hard to do, but it's a little easier when you both want it over with. Who said angels can't have fangs?

“I thought you said you were going to play.”

“I am,” Agatha replies, not looking up from her mobile. She’s been texting people nonstop for about a half-hour, and she promised to play Just Dance long before that. It’s one of the only Christmas presents she got (and an early one, too) that we could actually use together, as a couple-y thing. We’re at that point in our holiday break where both of us could desperately use some time and space apart, but seeing as how we’re staying at her house and I can’t drive back to Watford, that’s not possible. The distance between us is made up of unrelenting periods of quiet instead.

I’d rather be alone in my room at Watford with Baz’s records than here feeling lonely with my girlfriend. (He stashes the player and his box of albums in his wardrobe, but I know exactly where they are. I’d be careful with it all.)

“Just join me when you’re ready,” I sigh, tapping through the song list and picking one at random. Some poppy American song that I don’t recognize kicks on, and a faceless girl in a gold dress and heels sparkles onto the TV screen to guide me through the routine.

This should not be that hard. Raise the left hand, raise the right hand, wait a few beats, clasp your fingers together and kinda bounce them around your bellybutton height, rinse, and repeat. I can find the rhythm in Baz’s music easily enough! This is great—

Oh hell, now I have to cross my legs and look like I’m skipping in place? What the fuck is this?

“You look like you’re smashed,” Agatha giggles from behind me.

“I’d love to see you try it!” I say, just as the chorus kicks in and the girl begs someone to call her maybe. _Now_ I remember this song. Aggie showed me the music video a few days ago because she thought it was hilarious—Carly Rae Jepsen going gaga over a bloke, and said bloke happens to be gay.

Agatha doesn’t answer, just keeps on giggling. I’ve got the distinct feeling that she’s not texting anyone anymore, and that she’s got her camera trained on me. She likes to do that sometimes: take random videos and act all surreptitious about it when you know she’s not being subtle at all.

“Aggie, stop laughing at me! It’s fucking hard!”

“Definitely not doing that.”

I hear the telltale click from her mobile that the camera finished recording, followed by her rapid tapping on the keys (she’s so bad at shutting off her sounds—it’s a miracle the Mage hasn’t confiscated her mobile yet).

The girl on screen keeps working so hard to keep the beat, but I abandon dancing to look over my shoulder. “You’d better not be sending that to anyone.”

“Oh relax, it’s just Baz.”

“ _What?!_ ” I know flinging myself onto the sofa is overreacting, but I can’t help it. If Baz sees this video, I might actually die of embarrassment. My voice always sounds like shit on recordings; I don’t even want to think about how ridiculous I look dancing.

I’m never this self-conscious. Why am I so self-conscious?

Agatha’s mobile pings with a response. She wordlessly unlocks her screen to show a video Baz sent in response. He’s watching some movie from the 80’s with Bowie wearing some extremely tight trousers that leave nothing to the imagination. The camera whirls like Baz is about to shut it off, but someone—probably his aunt—hollers from another room.

“ _It’s too fucking cold outside to smoke and I blame you!_ ”

A very sleepy-eyed Baz dominates the screen. His hair is fluffier than I’ve ever seen it before, like a dark thundercloud haloing his face. The curls make his cheekbones softer, less angular. If I didn’t know him, he’d actually look friendly.

“ _Apparently I control the weather,_ ” he tells the camera with one of his perfect eyebrows arched sky-high, and the video ends.

“I like his hair,” I blurt out. My heart throbs as soon as I say it. Not exactly the straightest thing to say to your girlfriend about your roommate.

Agatha gives me a funny look. “I do, too. He spells it down too much.”

“He spells his hair down?” I’d always assumed he spent hours slathering it down with pomades and gels and whatever else is in those expensive-looking containers stacked up all around our bathroom.

“Yeah, it takes him ages to do that in the morning. I thought you knew.”

Not at all. I’d just assumed all this time his ridiculously long bathroom routine was another way to get under my skin, but instead he’s been doing something…sad. Tucking away part of himself every morning before facing the day. There’s already so much of himself that Baz hides, and knowing that he does something like this makes a hard rock in the bottom of my stomach.

“Can you tell him I said that? That I like his hair?”

“S’pose I can,” Agatha shrugs, already tapping out the message.

It probably won’t do much, letting him know of my approval. He’ll probably just make a face at his mobile and delete the message right after he gets it, but I still need to tell him anyway.

“Oh, and tell him I say Happy Christmas.”

“Shall I just give you my mobile, then?” Agatha’s voice comes out far sharper than I think she meant it to, because she softens right away. “I can, if you want to keep chatting.”

“Nah, Baz will stop talking if he knows it’s me. We need a break from each other anyway.” 

She nods and goes back to typing—probably something about how weird Bowie looks in those trousers. I scoot around on the sofa and gaze at the immaculately trimmed Christmas tree that Agatha’s mum decorated. (She and Agatha did it the day we arrived at the house for break. I was only allowed to help a little, because Mrs. Wellbelove had a _vision_.) Maybe by the time I get done counting all the pieces of tinsel scattered on the branches, it’ll be time to go back to Watford.

****

Christmas break rushes by without much other excitement. (I suppose when you upset your girlfriend’s grandma by eating a chunk of butter right off the knife and ruin the whole pre-Christmas Eve dinner that was planned, everything else seems much less dramatic.) Agatha and I stay away from the New Year’s Eve party that her mum and dad throw, mumbling sleepy New Year wishes to each other when we hear the clock strike midnight downstairs. By the time we pull up to the gates at Watford, we’re grateful to spend some time apart.

I did get the strangest Christmas gift from Aggie, though. One that I definitely didn’t expect.

“It’s not leather,” she said apologetically as I pulled the dark blue denim jacket out of the tissue paper. “But I thought this could be a good starter. Plus you can put patches on this a bit easier.”

She gave me a patch, too, along with a tiny sewing kit from Tesco that you use to sew buttons onto dress shirts and such. The patch is a red dragon, wings outstretched and tongue flicking out of its mouth. I think it actually came from a bigger Welsh flag patch, but somehow it got separated from the green and white. I’ve no idea if Agatha got it because of the dragon from first year, or because she somehow remembered I was Welsh even though I told her probably once. Anyway, it looks pretty cool regardless. (Plus I think I managed to avoid bleeding too much on the denim after I pricked myself sewing the dragon on. Baz would probably think blood doubles how punk the jacket is.)

Falling back into the rhythm of Watford is almost too easy. Classes pick up right where they left off, and the professors waste no time in piling up study material on us. I feel like I spend most of my time hunched over my desk or the library if Penny is up for working together, only taking breaks to eat and sleep. Just as well, though—this winter is absolutely Baltic. There isn’t a night yet where the wind doesn’t rattle the windows (which I’ve now closed, Baz, you’re welcome).

Still, I make myself go out and walk around the grounds so I don’t go mental from being shuttered up all the time. That’s how I end up back at the Weeping Tower. 

How I manage to make it back to the room having only been there once before is a mystery to me. Normally I’m absolute shit with directions. But it’s like the weird shifting magic of the room is calling to me from behind the door, and I know exactly where I need to go. The golden hare on the tapestry nods at me when I push it aside and head in.

Unlike the first time, the room doesn’t put on any illusions. This is the same Watford nursery where Baz and I got high a month ago, minus the reek of weed. I do spy a left-behind wine bottle hidden behind one of the curtains, though, which means someone was here after us. I guess the room that changes for everyone is the best place to come and break school rules if that’s what you want to do.

I sit down against the wall and gaze up at the ceiling. The biggest hare in the center is cleaning its face with its paws, unsurprised by my presence. (It shouldn’t be a surprise—I’ve been coming down here for two weeks now.)

“Hey, bunny,” I call up to the ceiling.

The hare stop cleaning and holds a paw over its eye, staring down at me. This is the usual response I get, and I’ve learned after a couple days that all you have to do is establish eye contact for a good minute. After that, the hare blinks and goes back to cleaning.

“Hope you don’t mind if I talk to you.” I say this every time and have never gotten a negative response, though I always have to ask. You never know how temperamental enchanted paintings can be. “There’s a lot going through my head right now, and normally I try not to think, which means when I _do_ think, everything starts gushing out so fast that I can’t keep up and it’s just,” I sigh, “a mess.” 

I unwind my scarf from around my neck and ball it up to use as a pillow against the wall.

“I need to break up with my girlfriend, and I can’t find the courage to do it.” There, I said it. Now it’s out in the open with the hare as my witness. “Every other time I’m faced with something that should terrify me, I can run headlong at it with no problem. Pure instinct. But Agatha’s not any kind of magical creature. She’s not the Humdrum. And somehow that makes me lose every bit of self-assurance I’ve got. Even though we don’t love each other like we used to, this will still break her heart.”  
  
The hare finishes inspecting one ear and lets it spring back up. Its beady brown eyes fix on me as if to say _anything else?_

“And then there’s Baz. You know about him already.” When I’m here, at least I don’t have to hide how hard I’m blushing. “He’s mostly been an insufferable twat since our first year, and he still is, but…we have these moments, yeah? Usually there’s music playing, and we just look at each other, and there’s a spark between us. A connection. I want to believe there’s something there, because I know I feel something on my side. I still think it’s too early to be love—that word feels too big. But maybe that’s what it is.”

I love Baz. This is my grand conclusion from being able to think out loud to a magical bunny for two weeks. Every time the thought crosses my mind, my whole body feels electrified and I don’t come down from the rush for a good hour afterward—usually I have to walk it off so Baz isn’t suspicious when I get back.

“With Baz, I don’t have to worry about being enough like I do with Agatha. I can be the complete fucking wreck that I am, and he can be the complete fucking wreck that he is, and together we’re more than enough. But I don’t know for sure if he feels anything on his side. Normally I don’t care about looking before I leap, but,” I sigh, “I don’t want to screw this up.”

The way I figure it, I get one shot to tell Baz how I feel. If I take the jump and miss, I’m falling without a safety net. For once, I’d like to know if I’m going to hit the bottom.

“So what should I do about this, bunny? What can I do?”

“ _I don’t have enough information to respond to your query._ ”

“What—you can talk?” I’ve been coming down here for two weeks, and _this_ is the day the bunny picks to open its mouth?

“ _Is this one of your educational opportunities for today?_ ”

I stare up at the hare, who’s twitching their nose in anticipation. “Uh, no. No. Hang on, what kind of questions can you answer?”

“ _I am bestowed with the knowledge of all of Watford’s history, beginning with its founding and continuing into the present time. I am also able to answer most general knowledge questions. However, I cannot assist with personal matters of the heart such as yours. I am only a hare, not human._ ”

Of course. Not that I expected meaningful life advice from a painted bunny on a nursery ceiling anyway. But if it really knows the history of Watford, this could be a huge breakthrough for Baz’s mystery. First, I have to test it. “Okay, bunny. When was Watford founded?”

The hare stomps one of its back feet. “ _Watford School of Magicks was founded in 986. The initial structure served as a full-service Mage village, the first communal gathering of Mages in all of Britain, and the first building constructed was the White Chapel. Unlike many Normal schools, Watford School of Magicks was founded as a coeducational institute_ _and has remained as such throughout the centuries._ ”

Sounds a bit like someone reading a Wikipedia article out loud with a congested nose, but all right. Everything the hare says matches up with what I’ve learned in Magical History. Then another question pops into my mind, one related to the mystery Baz talked about last time we were here.

“Bunny. When did the vampires attack Watford?”

“ _The Watford Tragedy occurred on August 12, 2002._ ”

Professor Cannon doesn’t talk about the vampire attack in Magical History. Most of us attending Watford now were too little to remember it actually happening, but I suppose everyone who isn’t me grew up learning some version of the events from their families. Penny had to tell me about it in third year through passing notes in class; thankfully she didn’t treat me like a numpty for not knowing.

Merlin and Morgana. That means Baz was only five years old when he was bit. Barely old enough to remember being a full human being. (He’s still alive, though. I’m convinced of that. He’s just not totally human.) One minute he was a little boy, and the next…

“ _You have three educational opportunities remaining for today._ ”

“Does that mean you can only answer three more questions total, or you can only answer three more questions from me?”

“ _Each individual I encounter is granted a six-question limit per day to prevent monopolization of my capability. You have two educational opportunities remaining for today._ ”

I bite the inside of my cheek and think. Six questions might not be enough for Baz to learn everything about the day he was Turned, but it should be enough to start. He can come back here as much as he needs for the truth, assuming he doesn’t come down here to get stoned (the thought of him being stoned and alone makes my chest crush, like it did in third year when I found him in our room).

As much as I want to dig in and ask more questions, this is Baz’s mystery to solve about his own life. It feels a bit voyeuristic to pry, especially when he doesn’t know about the hare.

“Thank you, bunny!” I call up to the ceiling. “I’ll be back!”

I grab my scarf and beat it out of the Weeping Tower. I’ve got to tell him about this.

****

Nico. Nico. Nico.

I flip over to the next page in the 2003 volume of _The Record_ , the same page I’ve pored over at least ten times. At this point, I could recite the Watford Tragedy entry in my sleep. You’d think that would stop me from combing over and over, looking for a name that I know isn’t there, but it doesn’t. Every time I leave the library, I convince myself that I must have missed something in my research.

Just like always, no Nico to be found here. I slam the giant volume shut, earning me an ugly look from a first year trying far too hard to study.

Because I’m not the most patient person in the world, I’m kinda rubbish at research. Penny usually handles research when it came to Mage missions, but I haven’t enlisted her help since the Mage started ignoring me. Plus this feels like something I need to take on for myself. Baz didn’t ask for myself, though I want to help anyway. He didn’t mean for anyone else to see the replay of the vampire attack except for him and maybe me. It feels like we’re in this together.

(Baz also keeps having nightmares about what he saw in the nursery. Unlike me, he doesn’t jolt upright afterwards with great heaving gasps and sobbing; he quietly whimpers and curls tighter in on himself until I worry the sheets are going to strangle him. I’ve gotten in the habit of turning on his speaker to some softer music to calm him down. Velvet Underground works the best, mixed in with slower Lou Reed.)

 _These Days_ jangles through my head while I throw the volume of _The Record_ on the nearest library cart and head toward the biography section. Unfortunately, Nico herself is likely not the Nico those vampires were talking about, but it’s possible that Nico was someone important in the World of Mages. Someone shadowy yet powerful. They’d be fairly young, too, around Penny’s mum’s age or maybe a bit older. And they’d have to be someone Headmistress Pitch knew about, someone she would closely associate with vampires if that was the first person she thought of.

I have all these pieces that seem like they should fit together, but I can’t see the overall picture. It’s enough to make me brain myself against the bookshelf.

My fingers trail over the dusty book spines, hoping to pick up on something that might knock everything into new light. Instead, I end up brushing my fingers over the feathery chest of a barn owl that’s staring down at me with a note in its beak, and if I weren’t so used to the Mage sending birds after me with messages, I might have screamed.

“Looks like he wants to talk to me after all,” I tell the owl as I reach up to pat its head. The owl drops the note into my free hand and leans into my touch with a little chirp.

The note turns out not to be from the Mage.

_Simon, we need to talk. Can you meet me tonight outside by the yew tree? Send a message back with Debbie; she’ll know how to find me without a spell. Love, Agatha._

“I’m so sorry that your name is Debbie.”

Debbie ruffles her wings and squints down at me in annoyance. Just saying, I could think of a dozen other names that I’d pick for an owl before that one. I pull a pen out of my inner blazer pocket, scribble a quick reply, and hand it off to Debbie before she can pass any more judgment on me. She flaps off above the bookshelves and vanishes into thin air, presumably reappearing wherever Agatha is.

There’s only one reason why Agatha would want to meet alone out by the yew tree, definitely breaking curfew: she wants to end things between us. I’ve never felt more relieved.

****

“Would you fucking—ow! Knock it off!”

Snow devils. I spend two hours waiting outside the wall, underneath the yew tree, only to end up with my arse being frozen into oblivion and my head being pelted by chestnuts by an angry colony of snow devils.

 _This is what I get for wanting things to be over with Agatha but not having the bullocks to end it myself,_ I think. Or maybe the skanks came back for a second round of revenge by proxy. In any case, I don’t know how much longer my skull can hold up against bombardment. And it’s not like I can fight back either: snow devils, annoying as they can be, are a protected magical species. I’d rather not take one out with a well-aimed chestnut if I can help it.

“OUCH! Little bugger, stop it!”

Something crunches lightly into the snow not that far off. Is it bad that I can tell who it is by the weight of his footsteps?

“Waging war?” Baz calls. He’s simultaneously the best and worst person I could possibly have run into right now.

“What are you doing here?”

“Fancied a walk—” he flinches like I do when a chestnut hits my cheek, “—got locked out. Why are you fighting with snow devils?”

He’s full of shit. Who decides to go out walking in their pajama pants, a jumper, and their leather jacket at this hour of the night? (And why does that awful combination look good on him?) “They started it. Aggie was supposed to meet me. And I don’t believe you got locked out, ‘cause you were asleep when I left the room. Did you follow me?”

Baz rolls his eyes and rubs his hands together like he’s starting a campfire with his palms. Sure enough, a flame springs to life in a few seconds. “Not everything revolves around you. Crowley, it’s fucking freezing out here.”

“Tell me about it. My warming spell won’t work.” I’d tried for over an hour to cast “ ** _C’mon baby, light my fire_** ” to no avail. Probably doesn’t work unless you have someone in mind as your baby who could lend you their warmth. “I have no idea why Aggie wanted to meet out here. I thought maybe…”

“Ah yes, a lover’s tryst in late March. What a lovely opportunity to get frostbite on your dick.”

“What the _fuck_ , Baz? Why are you even here?”

“Took a walk. Got locked out.”

Oh, so he’s still on his bullshit. “By taking a walk, you mean killing Bambi’s mum, huh?” I’ve no idea why I decided to say something so shitty. We haven’t touched on the vampire thing in ages; instead we settled into an unspoken understanding about it. Maybe I can’t help but poke a sleeping bear.

His lip curls into a sneer, and he holds his little flame away from me at arm’s length. “Don’t tell me we’re doing this again. I’m not a fan of reruns.”

“Just because I dropped it doesn’t mean I forgot.” Which is true—I think about Baz being a vampire nearly every day, especially since the teaching hare. “I’m sorry, by the way,” I say, pressing in closer to him and the fire. “About your mum.”

“I’ve come to terms with it.” He’s still lying.

“Still, she’s your mum. Any news on who Nico is?”

Baz’s eyes dance with curiosity. “What makes you think I’m searching?”

He deflects so much that he may as well be a mirror. (Er, wait, mirrors reflect, not deflect. Anyway.) I explain to him what I researched on my own in _The Record,_ down to the silly connection I made to Nico the singer, and I stare up at his shadowed face the whole time. By the time I’m done, I swear he looks like he wants to smile.

“Why were you researching this on your own?”

“Like you said before, I like mysteries. And I know you’re looking into it, even if you pretend you aren’t. I’d like to help.” That’s my mode of operation: help others and untangle mysteries, whatever it takes. Also I feel like I have unspoken permission to poke around now after what happened in the nursery.

“Why?”

I’m about two seconds from tackling him into the snow to knock some sense through his thick head. “Because you’re my friend,” I say, mocking how he always frowns at a pressing problem in his homework. “And that’s what friends do.”

“When did we become friends?” There’s an edge of panic to his voice, and it pitches up a bit at the end. Did I actually manage to throw Baz off balance in a conversation? “I don’t remember signing that contract.”

Okay, now I’m one second away.

“Right, okay, sure.” I bite back the _whatever_ hanging on my tongue. “We’re still enemies then, just enemies who have stopped trying to kill each other and sometimes share food.”

“That was _once_.”

“You don’t have to take my help.” Now I sound like the stroppy child here. “I’m just saying, it’s there if you want it.”

The familiar sneer Baz always wore when we were younger crawls back onto his face, and I’m shocked how repulsed I feel looking at it. “And what, in turn I’m supposed to offer to off the Humdrum?”

“No, that’s my job.”

“Why?”

I can’t help but tilt my head at him. Where has Baz been all his life? What part of me being the Chosen One is so hard to understand? I didn’t go and pick this life, and I sure can’t wait around for the Mage to do anything. There have been so many moments where I’ve sat bored to death in class and wondered what would happen if I just left. Just walked out and went to deal with the Humdrum myself, blazing sword in hand.

(I’ve also wondered if the Mage actually _wants_ the Humdrum defeated. Without that threat looming over our heads as a distraction, he has no way to divert the attention of the Old Families toward something that should unite us as a community. They’d concentrate all their energies on trying to take him down. But I’m not telling Baz any of this, not yet, anyway.)

“It seems like the Humdrum just picking on you because you have power,” Baz reasons. “Why does that mean you have to go along with it? Why do you have to fight?”

“Because someone has to.” My magic flares up, the smell of a green campfire rising into the air around us. “And I can.” That’s what I have to tell myself, that I can take down the Humdrum. No one in the World of Mages can afford the alternative.

“Well, no one said you had to do it alone.”

We stare at each other for the longest while, our breaths hanging in cold clouds in front of us. I try to read his face, searching out his intentions. Never once in six years could I imagine Baz actually wants to help me fight the Humdrum. But the idea of us working together…the idea is almost fun.

“Are you offering?” I ask.

The walls spring up around Baz again, and any trace of openness in his face completely shuts down. “No, of course not. That’s what Bunce is for. And Wellbelove.”

At least I can count on one person being in my corner. “I think Aggie was coming to break up with me,” I tell him by way of explanation. 

Although he’s been considerably less shitty toward me lately, what with our being not-quite-friends and all, I still expect him to laugh. Maybe bite back a smirk. _Something_. Instead, he’s as impassive as ever, and I’m grateful.

“I know it’s coming, I can tell. I wish she’d just get it over with instead of stringing me along and having me wait for it. And I wish she hadn’t gotten me locked out.”

After that, I expect some kind of lecture about how I could just as easily break up with Agatha as the other way around. (As if that hasn’t crossed my mind. Believe me, it has. Every version of that conversation that gets played out in my head ends with me botching it horribly; either we both end up unable to speak to each other ever again, or we somehow end up staying together in misery. I am _horrible_ with my words.) But Baz surprises me yet again. In the space of a minute, he suggests getting tea from the kitchen, instructs me to blow up the drawbridge so we can get back inside the ground, and insults me to where my magic surges up fast enough to make my stomach flip.

Back in the room, we gaze at each other over steaming mugs of tea, holding an entire conversation with our eyes. With Agatha, I have to spell everything out point-blank. But with Baz, we can say so much without speaking a single word.

****

“I _cannot_ believe she locked you out.” Penny is indignantly buttering toast at tea, and I’m afraid she’s going to stab the knife through her hand if she gets any angrier. Nearly everyone else has filtered out of the dining hall already, since it’s Friday, so not many people are around to hear her get wound up. A wound-up Penny is a dangerous force to be around.

“You say that like Agatha walked up and locked the gate behind me. Really, if you want to blame anyone, blame the Mage’s Men. Or the curfew being so early.”

“No offense, Simon, but I’ll lay blame wherever I see fit. And when it comes to this, Agatha is clearly at fault.”

I stir the spoon in my teacup listlessly.

“She didn’t need to be so dramatic about it, either. Inviting you to stand in the snow by the yew tree at night to leave you out in the cold physically as well as emotionally? There are plenty warmer spaces on campus where she could have done it. The library, for instance. Or any number of empty classrooms.”

“I don’t think the library staff would be too happy if someone dumped someone else in the middle of the stacks.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I could have finished it off, too. Er, us.”

“That’s not the point here.”

“Then what is, Pen? We’re both fucking miserable together—anyone can see it. Just because she has more brass to attempt breaking us up has to count for something, doesn’t it? Even if she backed out at the last second, the intent still matters.”

Penny blinks at me, momentarily stunned. I realize that I’d come close to shouting, and that the few people left in the dining hall aside from us were staring. I decide to take out my frustration on another scone while Penny recomposes.

“We never really talked after Christmas,” she starts after another beat, “about Baz.”

“What does Baz have to do with breaking up with Aggie?” Merlin, I don’t want to have this conversation now.

“Don’t play stupid, Simon, it’s not a look you wear well. Right before Agatha hauled you off to Chateau Wellbelove—”

“—she didn’t haul me off—”

“—you seemed like you were on the verge of a breakthrough.”

“Can you please not call it that? A breakthrough? Makes it seem like I’m in therapy.”

“Well, what would you call it, then?” Penny folds her arms and leans over the table toward me.

“If I had any of this shit figured out, Pen, I would have told you.”

“You don’t have to have anything figured out before talking to me.” There’s a sad note to her voice that makes my stomach twist. “We can figure things out together; that’s what friends do.”

I grab my teacup and drink down to the cold dregs before meeting her eyes again.

“Look, I feel _something_ for Baz.” I’m not going to drop the L word on Penny—she’ll lose it for sure. “I don’t really know, because I’m trying not to think about it too much,” which is a total lie, “because I’m still technically with Aggie and thinking about that feels…wrong.”

“You’d hardly be the first person to have feelings for someone else while you’re in a relationship. The fact that you won’t act on it proves you’re more loyal than most,” Penny takes a sip of her tea. “Even if you are clinging to a sinking ship.”

“I’m scared,” I confess.

She tilts her head to the side in a wordless question.

“What if we break up, Aggie and I, and it turns out I’ve read everything between Baz and I wrong? Then I’m just falling through the air. And I still have to _live_ with him afterward.”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself. Don’t plan your big romantic gesture before you plan your big dramatic breakup.”

“I wasn’t planning any big romantic gesture,” I snap, blood rushing furiously to my cheeks.

“Simon, you are less capable of subtlety than Baz is, and that’s saying something.” Before I can begin to untangle what Penny is implying by that, she continues. “Send Agatha a note back, since you seem so incapable of actually talking to each other face to face. Tell her you’ll meet her wherever—just pick someplace where you won’t freeze your arse off—and what time you’ll be there, and she can come and say what she needs to say. That takes some of the pressure off of her shoulders, and you’ll get time to think about how you’re going to respond.”

“You’re a genius,” I breathe.

“I know, but I don’t get near the credit I ought to.”

I scramble up from the table (clearing my dishes before I leave, because I’m not a complete animal, and thanking Penny again for her help, because I’m not rude) and head off. Baz is probably off lurking somewhere with Dev and Niall after football practice, which means I’ll have the room to myself. Good. I tend to pace when I get stuck writing—no matter what Penny says, I cannot just “write through it”—so I need the extra space. Even if I am just writing an invitation to my girlfriend to break up with me. That’s what it really is, too, an invitation.

Merlin, what a strange life I’m living.

How do you even begin a letter like that? _Dear Agatha_ is too formal. _Aggie_ sounds too friendly. Suppose I could start by saying _Hello_ , but that’s weird. Okay, skip the introduction. All I really have to say is _we need to talk_. Then I have to say where we’re going to talk. Someplace inside, preferably.

I’m still mulling things over when I prick my thumb and press it to the door of the room. But when I step inside, every thought in my mind goes dead silent.

Baz is curled up on his bed, face buried in Niall’s stomach and arms wrapped around his waist. Niall’s hair looks like a dandelion puff set on fire, drool trickling out onto Baz’s sheets and snoring. His freckled hand rests on Baz’s cheek as though he fell asleep caressing his face. They’re so unbearably soft together. Wait— _are_ they together?

Of course, because I have to fuck up at least one thing every day, I bang my knee into Baz’s desk and knock some books onto the floor. (You’d think by this point I’d know better than to stare and walk at the same time.) Wincing, I bend down and start picking them up.

“Sorry,” I announce. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t—fuck.” More books fall to the floor, and I manage to trip over Baz’s chair at the same time. Brilliant. “I’m sorry.”

“Snow, ‘s fine,” Baz replies, his voice like sandpaper. Niall mumbles something next to him, sitting up and rubbing one eye.

“I just need to get my bag and I’ll leave.”

“Snow, it’s fine, you don’t have to turn around!” Baz seems to think I’m turned away because I’m protecting their privacy or something, but the truth is my face feels like it might melt off from raw heat. I’ve never felt so embarrassed in my life, and the idiotic thing is I have no reason to be. There’s no reason for this writhing feeling in my stomach to be clawing around, either, but there it is, threatening to rip me apart.

Baz and I owe nothing to each other. We’re nothing more than roommates and friends, though I think a friend might let slip their friend that they’re seeing someone. Possibly. Not a requirement, I guess, if you’re not sure how you’re standing with each other.

Niall is grabbing at his stuff behind me, making a mad dash for the door. A familiar shade of blue catches the corner of my eye, and I turn.

“Are you wearing my hoodie?”

He drops his practice bag as he gazes down at himself. I’ve never seen Niall blush so hard—his freckles blend right in with the rest of his face.

“Uh. Oh, maybe,” he says. “It was just there and I thought it was…Baz’s…”

I’m giving him far more of a death glare than I mean to, but I’ve lost a good bit of control. Was this some fucked-up joke of Baz’s? Have Niall put on my hoodie and cuddle up with him for a laugh? What the fuck does any of this mean?

“Here, hold on, I’ll—”

“Take it,” I snap. “But next time, don’t touch my shit.”

“Right.” Niall mumbles goodbye and takes off, leaving the two of us alone. I can barely stand to look at anything right now, least of all Baz. Tears sting at my eyes and I reach up to wipe them away, only to send my mug of biros flying off my desk.

“Crowley, Snow, you don’t need to be so stroppy,” he says. “Not like we were doing anything.”

 _Bullshit._ “Next time, give me some warning, yeah?” I call over my shoulder, scooping up my biros. “So I don’t walk in on you and your… _boyfriend._ ”

The word hangs between us in the air for a tense moment, and then—

“He’s not my boyfriend.” The duvet rustles behind me as Baz curls up further on his bed. “Good to know that’s how you’d react if he was, though. Never pegged you to be the homophobic sort.”

Oh hell, is that what he thinks I meant by that? “I’m not homophobic!”

“Could have fooled me.”

“I don’t care if you have a boyfriend!” Today is the day for me to lie, I guess. “I just…We’re friends. I thought…I thought you’d tell me.”

“Niall and I aren’t dating.” Baz’s voice goes so soft I can barely hear him. He should sound more cut up than he does. Instead he sounds reassuring, like he’s calming an upset child. Maybe I’m acting like a child right now, but I don’t care. Too much is roiling away inside me to make sense of any emotion beyond lashing out.

We bicker back and forth, me making a mountain out of Baz and Niall napping together and Baz deflecting all of my bullshit with grace. Then he delivers the cutting blow.

“Is that what this is about? Are you jealous? Crowley, Snow, do you want to cuddle? You just had to ask.”

He has no idea how much I’d like to scream _yes, yes, yes_ right back at all his questions. Absolutely no clue how miserable I’m making myself over him. Half of me wants to haul him out the window and toss him down to the merwolves, and the other half of me wants to jump out right after him. I stay right where I am, though, and sit down at my desk.

“Fuck off,” I mumble. Every bit of blood in me rises to the surface, making the room feel about ten degrees warmer than it really is. “And change the music, I hate this band.” I don’t actually hate the Arctic Monkeys at all—the irony of “Baby I’m Yours” playing right now is too much for me to handle at the moment is all.

I don’t have to look back to know the weight of Baz’s stare is hanging on my shoulders. The duvet rustles again, along with the soft _whump_ of him leaning back against the pillows. Crooning gets replaced by a plucky guitar, and every bit of stress in my body evaporates. I wish he’d play Fleetwood Mac more often, even if he would probably call them overrated.

The heavy bass of _The Chain_ beats into my head as I scratch out my note to Agatha. _We need to talk. Tomorrow at the White Chapel, 3:00. Come if you still have something you need to say._ I can’t help but feel a little rueful as Lindsey, Stevie, and Christine sing about never breaking the chain—Agatha and I made a promise we didn’t fully understand to each other, and somewhere the chain between us crumbled in our hands. Or maybe it was never fully linked up at the start.

Baz ignores me when I bring the folded paper airplane over to the window, and when I charm the paper with **_“Up, up, and away!”_** so it zooms off to Agatha’s dorm. He doesn’t even comment on the fact that I cast a fairly uncomplicated spell and managed not to blow anything up in the process. The rest of the night passes between us like that, with only the music talking.

****

Agatha is sitting in the pew closest to the altar, her blond head bowed. I don’t think she’s religious, but maybe she got here early so she could get in a little prayer beforehand.

I know what’s coming. My knees shake anyway as I walk up the aisle, thinking that this is some weird reversal of how things could have gone. How someday, Agatha could have been the one slowly trailing toward me at the front of the White Chapel (or any chapel, really, doesn’t have to be here at Watford), all draped in white. That’s not what happens in this reality, though.

“Hiya,” I call out, more as a warning to let her know I’m here. Agatha sits up and turns toward me, her eyes rimmed in pink. Oh, so she wasn’t praying; she was crying. Getting all her tears out ahead of time. Wish I’d thought of that.

“You’re wearing the jacket,” she says with a blink.

“Well, yeah. Nicest Christmas present I’ve ever gotten.” Denim isn’t the warmest thing to be wearing in late March, but I always run hot as it is.

Agatha pats the space on the pew beside her. “Sit.”

I do (my knees might give out if I have to walk any further), rubbing the back of my neck as she rearranges her skirt and faces me.

“I think I need to start this by apologizing. Literally leaving you out in the dark wasn’t a very kind thing to do.”

“The snow devils and I have reached an uneasy truce, if that makes you feel better.”

“It does, a little bit.” Why is it so painful to see her smile now? “But I should also apologize for some other things. Bigger things. Things that more or less, well, kind of ruined our chances to be happy with each other.”

“Like what?”

Agatha tucks a curl behind her ear, and it is so, so hard for me to stop myself from reaching out and mimicking her motion. I must have done that hundreds of times before. Now after today, I won’t be able to do that again.

 _It’s ending_ , I think. _You haven’t reached the end yet, but it’s ending._

“I tried a lot of times to make you be someone you aren’t,” she says slowly, as though thinking through each word. “And that’s not fair. You’re a wonderful person, Simon, as you are. There were so many times where I got frustrated with you just for being yourself.”

“To be fair, I can be a bit of a tosser sometimes. Too stubborn, too moody, too far up my own arse with following the Mage and everything he wants me to be.” I sound a bit like Baz saying all this, though nothing I’m saying is wrong. “Not saying that for pity, either. I’m being honest.”

Agatha shrugs, which is such a un-Agatha like thing to do. My habit must rub off on more people around me than I thought. “And I know I wasn’t the perfect girlfriend, either.”

She’s waiting for a teardown that isn’t going to happen. No matter how much my chest is pulling apart at the seams, I can’t find it in me to rip her to pieces about all the things she didn’t do well. How she never seemed to listen to me talk about the Humdrum. How she was more interested in being normal than in being extraordinary, to the point where I’d feel stupid about being the Chosen One if I spent too long around her. How we never seemed to connect on a physical level: we hardly made it past kissing, and even then we’d get bored.

Because here’s what I’m realizing now, as I sit here, with multicolored splotches from the stained glass windows shining around Agatha’s hair like a halo: she’s just a girl. A girl who I dragged into the impossible mess of my life without thinking if she _wanted_ to be there. I never asked her to always be waiting when I came staggering back heroically from beating monster after monster, but I expected her to. Agatha deserves to have her own story; I can’t just lock her into mine.

“Simon?”

“Sorry, I…I got lost thinking,” I admit. “I owe you an apology, too. A lot of apologies, really. I’m sorry for the times when it seemed like I didn’t care because I was off somewhere else mentally. I’m sorry for making your interests in doing normal teenager stuff feel like they were less important, because it’s not. Sometimes you need to be a little normal to keep yourself from floating away, you know?” I scratch the back of my neck. “Being the Chosen One, even though I didn’t _choose_ to be chosen, is kind of my whole life. I’ve got to take down the Humdrum sometimes. But that doesn’t give me an excuse to be a shit boyfriend to you.”

I reach out to take Agatha’s hands, tiny and pink and trembling. “So I think the thing I’m sorry the most for is not being the boyfriend you needed. Or wanted. We weren’t meant to go together like this, I guess.”

“So it’s over.”

“Yeah,” I nod, “it’s over.”

I drop one of her hands, reach into my jacket pocket, and pull out the gold cross that hasn’t hung around my neck for nearly a year. Agatha’s eyes go wide when I drop the chain into her palm, some tears spilling over onto her cheeks.

“You don’t have to give this back!” she shakes her head. “This was a gift from my dad—”

“It’s a family heirloom,” I remind her. “Been in your family for centuries. And besides, I don’t need it. I’m not afraid anymore.”

The weight of those words hits me harder than I expected. Yes, I’m no longer afraid of Baz sneaking up on me and making a snack of my jugular at midnight, but I’m also not scared of what might happen between us. Even if I haven’t got it all figured out on my end yet. I’m open to it all.

I’m _free._

Agatha inspects the cross in her palm, tilting it back and forth to catch the light. Then she closes her fingers around it and looks back up at me. The water is mostly gone from her eyes, replaced with something like…pride? Why would she be proud of me?

“I’m glad.” Her voice still cracks. “I’m glad you’re no longer afraid. Bravery looks better on you anyway.”

I laugh weakly. “Guess so.”

“Can we still be friends?”

“I…I don’t think I can answer that right now.”

“That’s fine, take your time. Just. Thank you, Simon.” She reaches over and squeezes my hand, and I know it’s for the last time. “For everything.”

I should say thank her back, even though I don’t totally understand what I’d be thanking her for. Right now, the White Chapel feels like a sauna, and I need to put as much distance between her and me as possible before my magic overflows. So I give her a quick nod and seize the opportunity to bolt back down the aisle, out to fresh air.

I’m free.

****

My heart is pounding by the time I find Baz reading under a tree on the Great Lawn. I’m not so sure he’s actually studying, though—he rereads sections of his textbooks for fun outside class, and he doesn’t have his typical studying scowl on.

“Do you have music?” I blurt once I come up to him. “Nothing sad, I need something distracting.”

Baz blinks up at me like a cranky cat woken up from his nap. “Why?” In spite of his snarky tone, he takes out his mobile and starts unwinding the headphones from around it.

“Aggie broke up with me.”

I know I ramble a bit more than that, and I know Baz says something snarky in response, but all I care about is shoving those headphones in my ears and blocking out the world for a bit. Baz unlocks his mobile for me, and I scroll aimlessly and tap the first artist whose name doesn’t swim by my eyes in a blur.

_Come out, Virginia, don’t let me wait! You Catholic girls start much too late…_

Baz side-eyes me as I settle against the tree next to him, but soon he goes back to reading his book. My magic cools off the longer I sit and listen to Billy Joel pine after an unattainable girl: I can feel the anxiety working its way out of my shoulders. I sense Baz’s magic rise too, crackling like a fireplace between us, almost like it’s trying to soothe me. Not sure if he consciously means to do this, but I appreciate it all the same.

Of course, I can never have peace and quiet for longer than two minutes. Dev and Niall crash down in front of us—Dev looks like how I felt about an hour ago, utterly wrung out—and start chatting with Baz. I ignore them and listen to Billy Joel sing on about not caring what others say anymore, because it’s his life. Is Baz’s mobile psychic, or does it always just happen to pick the most appropriate songs for my mood?

“Snow has been shoved off as well,” I hear Baz say through my headphones.

I make a point of pulling out the headphone in the ear closest to him. “Hey, thanks, Baz. That’s so kind.” He tilts his head and smirks as if to say _no problem_ , and I roll my eyes.

“Sorry to hear that,” Niall pipes up. If any of the three of them would be concerned about my well-being, it’d be Niall. We aren’t exactly friends yet, but I think we could be if we spent enough time together. “You all right?”

“Yeah, I guess. Knew it was coming, kinda.”

“Is Wellbelove all right?” Baz asks. What the fuck?

“Yeah, she’s fine. She and Penny were already making jokes about who gets you in the custody battle.” I can lie for the sake of banter, right?

“Agatha,” Dev, Niall, and Baz all reply in chorus.

“Wow, Baz. Don’t take time to think it over or anything.”

He shrugs. “You have Bunce, it’s only fair.”

“Well, you have Niall. He’s almost as smart as Penny.” Does this count as real banter? Is this what regular people do with their roommates?

“Fine, you can have Dev. He’ll make up for the class you’re losing along with Wellbelove. He’s free now, anyway.”

Dev interjects just then. Apparently his French girlfriend dumped him due to distance and language barriers, which is understandable. Hard enough being apart from someone when you can’t even talk to them fully. I kinda know the feeling.

“You should have Baz teach you,” I suggest. “He speaks French at me all the time.”

“Oh _really_?” Niall grins, putting on his Irish accent a bit too heavily. “And what does Baz say to you in French?”

“No idea. Probably something shitty.”

“ _Tu es un putain d’idiot_ ,” Baz hisses at me, and I don’t need to be fluent to understand exactly what he means by that.

“D’you need to show off every five minutes?” Letting my head fall onto Baz’s shoulder and bumping him feels like the most natural thing in the world, and I wonder why he’s allowing me to be so close. I let myself lay there for a beat or two, until Niall staring at both of us is a bit too much to bear. Thankfully, he starts prattling on about Craig Stainton (does he not _see_ how Dev looks at him? Dev might be heartbroken, but he’s right _there_ ) and diverts attention elsewhere.

That is, until the b-word comes up.

I sound a touch too accusatory when I ask Niall if he’s gay, and I look dead at Baz while I say it. Call it stereotyping, but all the gay kids tend to sniff each other out somehow. If anyone would have a clue about this beforehand, it’d be Baz.

Niall leans back into the grass. “I’m bisexual,” he tells us all, as simply as if reminding us that the sun rises and sets every day.

“I don’t know what that means.”

Dev sighs so hard it sounds like a steamroller pressed all the air out of his lungs. “It means he likes men and women.”

Wait. _Wait_. I pop my other headphone out of my ear, because it feels like my world just came to a screeching halt. It’s possible to…no way…

“That—That’s a thing?” I ask Niall.

“Yeah, mate, that’s a thing.” He smiles at me so kindly that I can’t help but smile back at him a little. “It’s pretty normal.”

What I feel is pretty normal. I can feel everything I felt toward Aggie and everything I feel toward Baz, with neither way being invalid. This is _revolutionary_.

But I also need space to digest all this, which I really don’t have when I’m surrounded by Baz and his mates. I can feel my brain overheating as it is.

Dev muses about who will come out as gay next, him or me, and both Niall and Baz turn this most dazzling shade of pink. I wind the headphones back around Baz’s mobile, place it in his palm, and tell him I’ll be back at the room. Then I all but run for Mummer’s so I make enough of a breeze to cool off.

I’ve never been the kind of person who assigns too much meaning to labels. That’s why I’ve never bought into being the Chosen One: all it does is give the Mage something to call me when he forgets I have my own name, and something for Baz to mock. Labels let people get a handle on you so they can figure out how best to press your buttons. At the same time, though, labels let you get a handle on yourself and bring some order to the chaos swirling inside and outside of you. They mean something.

 _Bi-sex-u-al_. _Bi-sex-u-al._ The syllables pound their way into my head as I pound up the stairs and prick my thumb to unlock the door. I left the window cracked open over my bed this morning, so the room has that faint fishy odor from the merwolves. Baz is going to bitch about it later, but I jump onto his bed and throw that window open too, just so I can get some fresh air flowing through here.

“I’m bisexual,” I whisper to the ceiling. Baz’s duvet is infused with the smell of his body wash; a pine forest rises up to meet my nose when I flop back onto his bed without thinking. The word fits over everything throbbing in my chest and softens it just enough. Makes everything manageable. Today has been the most ridiculous fucking day, and I just need something to make sense.

I roll over and glance at my desk, getting another whiff of pine. Then I remember that I have French homework due tomorrow, and that the world doesn’t stop just because your girlfriend breaks up with you. Reluctantly, I shove myself up and make it over to my chair to start studying.

Honestly, I only starting taking French this year because Baz speaks it when he feels particularly like being a twat, and I wanted to be sure he wasn’t still insulting me. (Plus Penny takes French, so we partner up whenever we have to talk in class). I have the phrases Baz murmured at me toward the end of last year written on the inside cover of my notebook, or at least what I thought he said, with the mission of learning what he said without consulting the Internet.

 _Tu es une belle catastrophe. Vous êtes un cauchemar absolu._ You are a beautiful catastrophe. You are an absolute nightmare. Pretty typical as far as insults from Baz go. I know he said one other thing, but I cannot for the life of me remember what it is.

I end up knee-deep in conjugating past tense verbs when Baz decides to make an appearance.

“Oh good, you’re back,” I say over my shoulder. “It’s weirdly quiet in here.”

He doesn’t reply, only walks over to his wardrobe and starts shoving things around inside. I watch him closely, tapping my biro on my cheek. Something shiny and black comes flying at my face, and I scramble to catch it before it hits the floor.

“What is this?” I ask, although I know immediately what it is when I flip it over and see the apple imprinted on the back of it.

“My old iPod. You can have it.” Baz chucks a pair of earbuds at me.

I thought I was done with this day being weird. “Baz, I can’t—”

“This isn’t about you. I’m doing a service to the World of Mages. If music helps calm you down, you should have music. Really, I should get a medal for fixing the Chosen One.”

“I don’t want charity.”

“It’s not charity. I pity you for getting dumped, and also I’m in constant fear that you’ll blow me up in the night.”

The enormity of Baz’s gift hits my gut like a bowling ball. He’s being shitty because he’s allergic to showing genuine generosity would be far too vulnerable for his taste, but I don’t care. I won’t have to go back to silence when I get my care home assignment for the summer. There’s no telling what he has loaded on this iPod—probably a load of The Smiths, which just makes me sigh—though I can’t complain too much. At least it’s music.

Baz looks like he might boke from being too kind all in one go, so our conversation ends and I turn back to my French homework. But not before I plug the headphones into my eyes and scroll through the iPod’s library, looking for a song to boost me along with conjugations.

****

The iPod becomes my best friend aside from Penny in the final weeks of term. Whenever a crushing wave of rejection washes over me from the break-up with Aggie, or I have a frustrating day in class reviewing magic I should have had down pat months earlier, the music is waiting for me. All I have to do is pop in my headphones and let the sound carry me away. I even taught myself a spell to hide the headphones while I’m walking around campus ( ** _“I’m the invisible man!”_** is not what Baz uses, and I accidentally turned myself invisible for a whole afternoon the first time I tried it, but it works if I focus enough) so I can listen in secret.

My summer prospects are looking brighter already, just by having music in my pocket. (Also it turns out Baz gave me an iPod touch, and you can message other people with it if you’re connected to WiFi and they have an iPhone. Penny and I exchanged numbers—all I have to do now is practically live in cafés all summer.) I know I won’t feel so alone this year.

Now I think I understand the stereotype of teenagers listening to angsty music to work through their emotions. A week after the fact, I was mostly over Agatha, but the break-up itself still stung. (How are you supposed to just stop talking to someone after years of knowing them? It’s _hard_.) Thank Merlin for young Baz being a deeply depressed fuck, because as ridiculous and maudlin as some of the music is, it _helped._ Knowing that someone had been in my corner and felt the same pain made it more bearable. Love will absolutely tear us apart.

Maybe I’m playing up my heartbreak a bit for Baz, though. I’ve gotten to where I can’t fall asleep without listening to music, and I make a point of clicking over to something sad (but not completely dark) right before I zonk out and playing it loud enough that Baz can hear it. He’d suspect something if I played nothing but upbeat songs after a break-up. Slower Queen songs mixed in with Prince and a few random power ballads become my lullaby soundtrack.

One night right before term ends, I wake up to Baz on the ceiling.

I fell asleep hours before he did (that Magic Words exam was a beast, but I think I conquered it), headphones tamped into my ears and all but dead to the world. For once, the room was pleasantly cool because Baz agreed to keep the window open, and I had my blankets tangled up just the way I like them. But somehow, all it takes is a bump for me to stir back into consciousness.

One of my headphones had fallen out. I’d rolled over onto my back—which meant I was snoring—with one arm flung over my forehead like a swooning Victorian lady. And there is a distinctly Baz-shaped silhouette on the ceiling.

He looks pretty up there, his curly hair teased out by the magical wind that I assume is keeping him suspended, his arms spread out a bit to each side. Angelic, really. I don’t think angels are supposed to look half as panicked as he does, though.

“Baz?” I mumble, my voice cracking with sleepiness, “why are you on the ceiling?”

He swallows hard. It’s hard to tell when he’s up so high, but I think his fangs have popped and he’s keeping them hidden in his mouth. “Spell practice.”

Only Baz would get the idea to practice new spells at the end of term. He’ll have gone and learned the entirety of our seventh year curriculum over the summer and come back just to show all of us up. I squint up at him, my barely awake brain trying to sort out why he seems to be less than excited about being able to levitate. Is he scared of heights? (Is that possible when you’re as tall as he is?)

“Weird,” I whisper back at him, roll over onto my side, and plug my missing headphone back into my ear. A moment later, I hear the gentle squeak of a box spring over the opening harmonizing of “Somebody to Love” as Baz floats back down to his bed.

Sometimes, on the lonelier nights in the care home, I imagine Baz on the ceiling. Not as a painting or some offbeat art installation, but just as himself, hovering there. A vampire angel. It’s nice to think someone is watching over me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SONGS FEATURED IN THIS CHAPTER: 
> 
> “Call Me Maybe” – Carly Rae Jepsen
> 
> “These Days” – Nico
> 
> “Baby I’m Yours” – Arctic Monkeys
> 
> “The Chain” – Fleetwood Mac
> 
> “Only the Good Die Young” – Billy Joel
> 
> “My Life” – Billy Joel 
> 
> “Somebody to Love” – Queen


	3. Every Song in Every Key

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blood and dancing. Shoves and kisses. Unexpected gifts and talks. A crazy little thing called plot. The hardest thing to learn is everything about yourself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you tell which chapter is my favorite? (Hint: it's this one because it's the longest.) 
> 
> unfair--verona on Tumblr gets a special shout-out for inspiring the second goblin fight. You were right: incongruous song choices are always funnier.

The goblin smirks at me, blood trickling out of the side of his mouth, and lunges away from the grungy sink mounted on the wall. I raise my sword. There’s not enough room for me to do a full swing, so I settle for jabbing right where I suspect a goblin’s liver would be. He spins elegantly away from the sword’s tip, only to lose his balance and stumble into one of the stalls.

“Oh, no you don’t!” I yell when the bastard tries locking the stall door on me. I slice it open, splintering the wood in two large chunks.

“Can you finish your kinky sex somewhere else?” someone hollers from outside the bathroom. They’re completely sloshed, whoever they are. “Preferably someplace less public, ya fuckin’ freak?”

“Kindly fuck off!”

While I was distracted, the goblin seized part of the door and ripped off a piece for a makeshift club. He catches me right across the cheek. I manage to hack the club in half and force the goblin to sit right in the toilet bowl (thank you to whoever left the seat up), blocking him in with my arms.

“We can do this quietly,” I tell him in a low whisper. “I can polish you off like the rest of your mates who were lurking by the back door and leave you to rot in the dumpster. Or we can make this a whole scene. I’m up for anything.”

“In that case,” the goblin sneers, “I’d rather paint the town _red._ ”

With a sudden burst of energy, he kicks me out of the stall. I crash back against the tiled wall with my left shoulder, which is already throbbing like hell. I don’t understand why killing _me_ decides the next goblin king. They’re all handsome—they should just pick whoever looks the most like Bowie and roll with that one for a bit.

Someone’s banging on the bathroom door. I ignore them and dodge the goblin slashing at my face with his nails, getting in a kick at his shin for good measure. He goes down yowling like a cat, and I seize the opportunity to drag him by the collar of his grubby yellow sequined shirt back into the stall he kicked me out of.

“Simon!”

I pin the goblin’s neck to the toilet bowl with my boot. “I’m _busy!_ ”

“ _Simon!_ ”

“Your master’s calling you,” the goblin taunts me with a strained voice. He sounds unnervingly like Baz, so much so that it gets me to look away from the door.

“The Mage is _not_ my master,” I snarl, stomping his head into the toilet hard. The Sword of Mages manifests in my hand, and I raise it up high to take the final blow—

“ ** _Simon!_** ”

The Mage bursts into the bathroom just as the blade stabs through the goblin’s jugular like butter. I squeeze my eyes shut against the spray of rancid-smelling blood in my face. That was far messier than it needed to be, but it’s not like I was going to get any cleaner.

“Are you all right?” he asks me. Of course there’s absolutely no blood anywhere on his club wear (it is so weird seeing him in anything remotely colorful), so he managed to dispose of the goblins attacking him cleanly. “You weren’t hurt badly?”

“Shoulder’s a bit off, but I think I’ll be fine.”

“Good, good.” The Mage seems distracted. “I need to go to a wedding.”

“I’m sorry?”

“A wedding reception, rather. The actual ceremony was two hours ago,” he explains, looking down at his watch. “One of the Wellbelove sisters, I believe. Did I remember to RSVP?”

“Sir, if you need to go, I can stay.” My wallet is in my back pocket, and I think I have enough money for a train ride back into central London. “I’ll hang around, see if any more goblins show up.”

“No, no, I think we sent a clear enough message. The smell of their fallen brethren should be a warning not to continue preying on Normal people at this club, at least.”

“A-all right. Then I’ll catch the train—”

“You’ll come with me,” the Mage interrupts.

“I’m hardly dressed for a wedding, sir.”

“They’ll make an exception.”

I’m sitting in the front of the Mage’s Land Rover five minutes later, willing my clothes not to leech too much goblin blood into the cloth seat. He says nothing about what we’d spent the last hour doing—taking out dark creatures in a London club—and simply turns out onto the street and merges into the flow of evening traffic. The radio is shut off. I want to reach over and turn it on, but I’ve no idea if the Mage even listens to music. He probably listens to BBC News while he drives.

Did Agatha tell me about the wedding? We’re broken up, have been properly for the past four months now, but we still talk since she’s loosely friends with Penny. I don’t remember her mentioning anything, though that doesn’t mean she didn’t tell me and I didn’t just forget.  

It’ll be nice to see her again. Seeing anyone from Watford over summer break is welcome, really.

Wonder why the Mage is going through all the trouble of getting to this Wellbelove wedding. The only thing I can think of is Dr. Wellbelove is a respected, high-ranking Coven member, and one of the few that remains fairly loyal to the Mage. It looks good if the Mage can put in a few appearances and show interest in something other than his own agenda.

(Merlin, I sound like Penny.)

Then a chill races down my spine. The Wellbeloves are on the Coven, which means they probably invited other Coven members to the reception, if not the ceremony. And wherever the Coven is, there will be Pitches and Grimms. Baz could be there, at this reception, looking more dapper than I could ever dream of being, while I show up in blood-soaked trackies.

Fuck me sideways.

At least there will be music at the reception. I’ve torn through most of Baz’s iPod, but it’ll be nice to have some fresh tracks in the mix.

We ride the rest of the way in relative silence, save for when the Mage hums as he waits at a stoplight or squints up to check a street sign before he turns. I’ve only been near Knightsbridge on the one trip I took to Buckingham Palace with some other care home kids when I was about ten, and that was in broad daylight when the streets were clogged with tourists. Now the streetlamps cast a warm glow over everything, making even the McDonald’s we pass by look posh somehow.

“Here we are,” the Mage announces as he pulls up to The Berkeley. Now I know I’m seriously underdressed. I’m rarely self-conscious about my clothes, considering how many of them get wrecked for some reason or another, but now I wish I had something to throw over my bloodied shirt and vest. Hell, it’s the beginning of August, and I’d gladly take a wool jumper to put on.

“Sir,” I ask while he’s negotiating the entrance to the parking ramp. “Do you think you could possibly—”

He’s out of the Land Rover before I can finish my question. _Asshole._ I pull my wand out from the waistband of my trackies and briefly consider casting “ ** _Clean as a whistle!_** ” on myself, but I don’t want to risk setting the car on fire. Especially not at a posh place like this.

I stand a bit behind the Mage while he speaks to the concierge, shoulders squared, trying to look for all the world like I belong here and that I didn’t crawl out of a dumpster. The concierge glances at me sideways, but she points us down the hallway to where I assume the reception is. The Mage sweeps away from the reception desk toward the sound of clinking glasses and murmuring conversation. I jog after him, earning more than a few concerned looks from other hotel guests in evening wear.

Merlin, I was right to think this place was lush.

A giant white trellis surrounds the entrance into the banquet hall, laden with roses which someone charmed to constantly change color. Every table is covered in white cloth, with a huge rainbow bouquet sitting in the center and roses tucked into the bows tied behind each chair. A DJ awkwardly tries to set up his laptop and other gear on stage at the same time that the string quartet is putting away their instruments, but barely anyone is paying attention. Either they’re milling around the hors d’oeuvres table, politely gazing at the skyscraper of a wedding cake (seriously, ten layers might be a bit overkill), or edging around the dance floor waiting for the music to start up again.

The Mage takes off immediately, heading right for a woman in a knee-length white dress with a tiara perched on her head. She resembles Dr. Wellbelove a bit, though with a rounder face. Dr. Wellbelove pops up out of nowhere and schools his face into a look of pleasant surprise rather than outright shock; his wife just outright gapes at the Mage. I’d wager anything that he didn’t RSVP.

I linger by the trellis, unsure with what to do with myself until I spot a familiar head of green hair piled up into a bun. Well, the hair is familiar—the color isn’t. Penny traces her finger around a flute of champagne, looking utterly disinterested in being here. (Wonder if any of the other Bunces are here.) Niall is practically headfirst in his champagne, and Dev is sitting next to him, watching with alert brown eyes. A couple empty chairs, and then…Baz.

Baz is in a deep red suit—jacket made of crushed velvet, because he can’t _not_ be posh—with his hair pulled back and curling a bit at the nape of his neck. A huffy little girl is balanced on his knee, and Baz is whispering something intently to her, though she doesn’t seem keen on listening. I didn’t know he had a little sister. They must be related, at any rate—they have the same pout and sharp dark eyes.

Something in my chest tightens when Baz picks up the little girl and sets her on her feet, still talking to her. He’s a big brother. How had I never thought about this before?

Penny saves me from gawking any further by catching my eyes and staring at me hard. We’ve only been apart for two months, but her intensity still sets me off guard.

“Simon?” she calls over to me.

Everyone at the table, and a few people elsewhere in the banquet hall, look up in my direction. I swallow and will my legs to walk toward Penny and the rest of them, raising my hand awkwardly to wave.

“Alright?” I ask, because I can’t think of a better greeting. Baz’s nostrils flare once I get up to the table, and I realize it’s because of the blood. Not sure if the scent is putting him off or raising his hackles (do vampires have hackles?).

“What happened? Why are you here?” Bless Penny. She always cuts right to the chase.

“I was out with the Mage. Goblins.”

Dev and Niall nod in understanding, although I think Niall’s head bobbing is more to his nearly empty champagne flute. The corner of Baz’s mouth twitches into something like a smile for a brief moment.

“Anyway, yeah, we were finishing up, but then he remembered he was supposed to be here, so he said I could tag along. He’s around here somewhere…”

The little girl standing next to Baz is eyeing me up, and I have no idea how to feel about this. She tugs on Baz’s jacket to ask him something, presumably about me, and I hear Baz answer, “More than I can explain.”

“Baz!” I exclaim. “You’re here!” As if I hadn’t spotted him the moment I walked in the door.

“Obviously,” he replies.

“You’re…you’re wearing a suit.” Because why say something intelligent when you can point out something right in front of you?

“It’s a wedding. Some of us didn’t dress casually.”

Well, there’s no need to be so shitty.

“It’s red,” I comment. I’ve never grasped so hard at straws for conversation in all my life.

Agatha comes dashing up to the table then, minty green dress swirling all around her. Her eyes are blazing despite the smile on her face, which I know spells trouble for anyone in her path.

“The Mage is here!” she announces. She rattles off some other concerns—having to talk to the caterer and her mum possibly having a breakdown—before turning to me. “Simon! You’re here, too. In…trackies. Covered in blood. At a wedding.”

I shrug. “Didn’t know I’d be here.”

“Baz? Could you help Simon, please?” Agatha’s eyes snap around to everyone else at the table. “Or someone? Just find him something to wear? Or something clean?”

Nobody seems interested in helping, with Niall straight up staggering away from the whole scene, and I’m about to turn back toward the door when Baz clears his throat. He’s not looking at me.

“Come on, Snow. I’ve got an extra suit that will fit you.” He stands up and fixes his cuffs. “Mordelia, go find Father. He’s probably looking murderous in a corner somewhere.”

I try to wrap my head around the fact that the Grimm-Pitches are weird enough to name a six-year-old girl _Mordelia_ as I follow Baz out of the banquet hall to the lifts. He swipes his room key and we step into the first lift that opens. Soft acoustic guitar jangles overhead while we ride up— _Time of Your Life_ by Green Day. If there’s ever a day where music doesn’t try to provide an ironic soundtrack to my life, I’ll be shocked.

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” I say when we step out of the lift into the hallway.

“It’s a Coven wedding,” Baz replies. “All families on the Coven are invited.”

It’s a miracle any of the Old Families are rich with how much money they must blow on inviting every last Coven family member to every event. Suppose that’s how they all stay close-knit, though. “Oh. Right.”

Baz unlocks his room, and I stop myself from gawking again. I feel like I’m hemorrhaging money just by standing on this plush carpet. The bed looks so inviting, an endless sea of deep blue silk, and a yawn stretches out of my mouth without permission. Forget the reception—would Baz let me take a nap for an hour up here? I wouldn’t make too much of a mess.

He walks over to the closet, reaches inside, and pulls out the finest dark blue suit I’ve ever seen. Three-piece and brand new, judging by the crisp creases in the trouser legs. The sleeves on the jacket might be a bit long, but anything I can wear right now is my saving grace.

“Here,” he says, laying the suit out over his free arm. I reach out and rub the jacket cuff between my fingers – actual linen, perfect for a summer wedding. “Bathroom is there,” he nods behind him, “but I can do a spell if you don’t want to shower.”

It’s like he can read my mind. “Would you?” I ask, right as a sharp pain arcs through my shoulder and I try not to wince. “It’s just…I don’t know how long the Mage is staying, and I kind of did something to my shoulder – I think a goblin got me, it’s kind of hard to raise my arms…”

Baz’s throat bobs when he swallows. Am I making him nervous?

“ ** _Spic and span!_** ” he casts at me. I didn’t even see him draw his wand. The smell of burning firewood encircles me, making my nose wrinkle, then crackles softly up from my toes up through my back. Penny usually is the only other person to cast spells on me, so this is an entirely new experience. It feels like I’m getting licked clean by flames, almost purified.

Baz is staring at me, presumably so his spell doesn’t go haywire. When the last of the magic fades away, he shakes his head as if to wake himself up.

“Go get changed,” he says, handing over the suit without meeting my eyes. This is the second time tonight he’s looked at me and then pretended like he wasn’t. What is up with him?

I take the suit into the bathroom and shut the door. Taking off my newly clean clothes proves to be a lot easier than putting on the suit, as it turns out. The buttons on the shirt are a challenge with only being able to move one arm without wincing, but I manage to get into it, along with shrugging on the vest. Trousers go on with no issue, although they’re a bit tight across my thighs. After a few minutes, all I’m left with is the robin’s egg blue tie which, sure enough, is silk. And of course I can’t tie the damn thing.

Brilliant.

I open the bathroom door with a much louder bang than I mean to, making Baz startle a bit where he’s standing at the window.

“I, uh, can’t tie the tie,” I announce.

“How do you get dressed every day at school?”

“No,” I shake my head and huff, “my shoulder. It’s all wonky. Can’t move it well.”

Baz eyes me up and down, his wand still in his hand. If he is actually able to read my mind, I hope he can tell that I wouldn’t mind if he came over and tied it himself. He’d probably be a prick about it, make some kind of snarky comment about how I’m no better off than I was our first year at Watford while tying it a little too snug. Or maybe that would be the Baz I knew before tonight. The one who could look me in the face. Did one of the goblins knock my nose off center again? Is that what’s putting him off?

“ ** _Get well soon!_** ” he says, pointing his wand at me. The flames of his magic flare up again, this time searing away all trace of pain in my shoulder. I shrug and roll it around once the magic flickers out, grinning at how good it feels. If people wouldn’t be so put off by the idea of healing fire, Baz should become a magical doctor (though his bedside manner would be absolute gobshite).

“Thanks,” I nod, reaching down to finally tie my tie.

“So what’s the deal with the goblins?”

He’s really interested in knowing about this? Probably just wants to know so he can pass it along to his father for Coven notes. I brush past him on our way back out the door, and I catch a whiff of the cedar and bergamot that usually lingers in our en suite at Watford.

“Oh, the Mage picked me up to go deal with them.” Merlin, it feels good to be able to shrug again with both shoulders – feels like having my jaw wired shut otherwise. “Turns out they were eating people in club toilets.”

“So you killed them?”

“Had to be done. They’re persistent.” Not like it’ll keep the goblins away forever, though. They have an entire civilization between the underground walls for the tube in London, and sometimes they linger under footbridges if they’re feeling frisky.

“I hope you left at least one alive.” Baz presses the down button for the lift, the familiar smirk back on his face. “You should have gotten his number. I know you love goblins.”

“What?” I can’t help but splutter.

“Goblins. I know you think they’re fit.”

“Yeah, well. That’s the point, isn’t it?” Fuck the lift, it’s too hot in here and I knotted this tie way too tightly. “Dark creature and all. They’re supposed to be fit.”

It takes Baz clapping a hand over his mouth for my brain to catch up with what I just implied. That Baz, being a vampire and by extension a dark creature, is fit. Which means I more or less admitted that I think he looks good.

 _Fuck_.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he says over his shoulder when we make it back to the entrance for the banquet hall, “I have an aunt to get plastered. Save a dance for me, eh?”

He’s just saying that. He’s just saying that because I’m already flustered, and he gets his kicks by putting me on my toes. I want to burst out of this overly warm suit and fly off somewhere so I can scream out everything I’m feeling. But Baz saunters off toward the bar, leaving me before I get the chance to respond.

Not that I would have told him no. 

“You’re back.” Penny materializes next to me with two glasses of punch. I swear she’s been working on teleportation spells, no matter how many times she explains to me that “ ** _Beam me up, Scotty!_** ” will not, in fact, work for that.

“Yeah, s’pose I am.”

“Nice suit.” She hands me one glass, and I realize just how thirsty I am once I take a sip. Not bad stuff—it’s got cherries floating in it. “Convenient that Baz happened to have an extra one on hand.”

“Really.”

“You didn’t tell him you were coming ahead of time, did you?”

“What? No.” We meander over to the table everyone had abandoned before and sit down. “Baz is just…like that. Obsessive about planning. He’d bring a backup for his backup if he thought something catastrophic might happen.”

Penny raises an eyebrow over her punch at me.

“I didn’t plan this, honestly! Didn’t even know the wedding was happening.”

“Agatha didn’t tell you?”

“We’re broken up, Pen. She doesn’t have to give me the weather report if she doesn’t feel up to it.”

“Still, we’re all friends.” Penny glances over her shoulder to where Agatha is fluttering around by the caterer, doing her best to look apologetic about adding two extra guests at the last minute. “A wedding is the sort of thing you tell your friends about.”

“I didn’t know you’d become so extroverted over the summer.”

“Agatha and I still text sometimes.” She turns back to me. “We never talked properly about the break-up. Are you sure you’re all right?”

How exactly do I tell Penny that I feel lighter than I have in months? That dating Agatha, as sweet as it could be sometimes, also felt more like a chore toward the end? It’s not because I didn’t love her that it was so easy to let go. I think it was more that I could really see how miserable she was, and I knew she’d be happier if we were apart. Of course I immediately found Baz and plunged straight into his music library, but Pen doesn’t need to know that.

“Been better. Been worse.” There. That’s close enough to the truth.

“We should dance,” Penny says, running a finger around the rim of her near-empty punch glass. She painted her nails with sparkling silver varnish, and it’s like she has little disco balls on the ends of her fingers. They’re more than a little hypnotic.

“Don’t know how.”

“When has not knowing how to do something ever stopped you before?”

Like always, Penny has a brilliant point. I run mostly on instinct and half-formed ideas. There’s not much point in sitting around thinking things through, especially when there’s a problem that needs to be dealt with right in front of you. Even the best-laid strategies get waylaid by a walloping troll or angry selkies.

“Fair point.” I squint over to where Baz now holds court over Dev and Niall, who both look like they’re convincing him to do something awful. Baz rolls his eyes over to me and cocks his head like a confused dog. All I do is stare at him harder while fishing for a half-empty and abandoned champagne flute. Did he seriously forget that he’d promised me a dance? There was always the possibility that he was joking, but I really did hope for a dance. I don’t have the best coordination (big feet), though Baz has enough grace for us both.

He gets up from the table where he’s sitting with his cronies and starts walking my way. Shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit. I slam down the rest of the champagne and try not to look too expectant or nervous…

…only to see him cross over to where Agatha is standing at the bar and touch her puffy sleeve.

Fuck Baz.

“We’re dancing,” I declare and grab Penny’s hand. The song playing right now features some annoying guy moaning about being hooked on a feeling, and I’m _so_ not feeling it. We linger at the edge of the dance floor until Stevie Wonder kicks in with a yell of _awwwwww hey!_

_Like a fool, I went and stayed too long_

_Now I’m wonderin’ if your love’s still strong_

_Ooh, baby, here I am._

_Signed, sealed, delivered, I’m yours!_

Penny joins me in twirling in our little corner, because I have absolutely no idea how else you’re supposed to dance to Stevie Wonder, and also because the lights above the DJ booth blur into the prettiest rainbow if I go fast enough. Baz is closer to the center of the dance floor, swaying all gently with Agatha and honestly looking out of place. He’s still _talking_. What kind of prat gets out on the dance floor just to have a conversation?

We make complete fools of ourselves, just like Stevie does for the woman he’s coming back to. I try to spin Penny like I’ve seen in the movies, with my hand held up high above her head, and all that gets me is an elbow to the stomach. And all _that_ does is make me laugh harder. Maybe it’s the champagne making me bubbly inside.

“A break,” Penny breathes at me when the Beatles come on. “I need a break. You’re so much.”

“In a good way, though,” I pant back.

“Always.” She claps me on the shoulder and eyes up the punch bowl balanced on the bar. “Always in a good way.”

The Mage taps me on the shoulder while we’re grinding our way through The Chicken Dance. He at least gives me the courtesy of saying goodbye to Penny before we head back to the parking garage. Part of me wanted to insist on spending the night, until I realize that Baz must have slinked off somewhere outside the reception. The one person I could have intruded on for hospitality (maybe, I think he’d at least offer), and he’s gone.

Again, fuck Baz.

It’s not until we turn onto the M3 that I realize I’m still wearing his suit.

****

I’m late getting back to Watford, and not by choice.

Everything was going along swimmingly: I’d managed to keep my luggage all together, the train showed up on time, and I ate something other than a mint Aero to keep my stamina up (“At least buy a sandwich, Simon,” Penny had begged me through text that morning.). The rain had kept away for the day, meaning I could gaze out the window at scenery like I suppose Normal train passengers do. None of them have to worry about getting jumped by supernatural creatures who have roped you into their internal political struggles because you accidentally killed their king when you were twelve.

I should have been more diligent.

“Miss me?” the goblin hisses at my side as soon as I walk off the train platform, arm around my waist like we’re old mates. He plucks my earbud out to say it too, the bastard.

“Have some decency,” I snarl, knocking him away and into the station proper. It’s hard to make a break for it, towing luggage and all, but I dodge him long enough to duck behind a service door leading into the alleyway. ABBA starts pumping through my ear just as the goblin bursts through the door, his green face twisted in a smile.

“Come now,” he says, leering with one clawed hand extended. “I just want to chat.”

“Well, I’m not feeling particularly chatty.”

“You’ve never once thought about coming along quietly, just to see what we’re all on about?”

“I know the story.” The Sword of Mages appears at my hip, and I step out into fighting stance, tucking my other earbud back into place. “Can we skip to the part where I’ve already beaten you and you’re lying for rot by the dumpster here?”

“Have it your way.”

The goblin lunges for me, and three others climb out of the dumpster to join him. Fuck, this was a trap all along—he _wanted_ me to come back here. I don’t care how fit they are, every goblin is an asshole.

Strangely enough, listening to music works really well for keeping up a solid fighting tempo. Dunno why I haven’t done this sooner.

_Just one look and I can hear a bell ring_

_One more loon and I forget everything, oh whoa!_

_Mamma mia, here I go again_

_My, my, how can I resist ya?_

One goblin nearly rips off my T-shirt sleeve; I respond by slicing off his arm. Another one shoves me hard against the pavement and jumps on top of me, punching hard into my cheek, and I kick her off into her mate. The mate gets incensed and goes right for my throat. I don’t have enough time to bring up the sword and block, so I improvise.

Baz is going to kill me for ruining his headphones. But when it comes to life or death, I think he’d approve of using them to throttle a goblin into unconsciousness.

“You wanna have a go?!” I scream at the last one. They shake their head and scramble over the car parked next to the dumpster. Honestly, I should have probably finished that one off, too, since they’re going to run off to the colony and report the carnage, but I don’t care. It’s already 9:30 at night, I’ve missed the welcome picnic, and all I want is to be back in my room at Watford.

I kick the goblin who I choked out (still out cold) and pull the headphones out from underneath their neck. The wire is slick with tarlike black blood; I do my best to strip it off with my fingers, but I know from experience that this stuff does not like to come out on first wash. Shit. All I can hope is that they still work.

I must look deranged to the cab driver I flag down at the front of Watford Junction, what with leaves stuck in my hair and my shirt half-shredded. He doesn’t attempt conversation on the ride, which is a relief, and makes no comment about dropping me off in the middle of seemingly nowhere with my bags. I thank him quietly, shut the door behind me, and turn to face the welcoming beacon of Watford shining through the dark.

Merlin, I miss it. Maybe if you live around magic all the time, coming back to school wouldn’t be as much of a relief, but to me, it’s like breathing in fresh air after being stuck in the cellar for three months.

Baz isn’t in the room when I get upstairs, though the lamps on his desk and next to his bed are on. He’s probably down in the Catacombs hunting (I’ve often wondered what he does on holidays when there aren’t any rats to feed on—does he go for bigger game then?), and I’m shocked by how normal that explanation sounds to me in my head. Just my vampire roommate, down in the creepy cemetery tunnels below our school, looking for a snack. I’d rather unpack in privacy, anyway. He hasn’t made any comments in recent years, but I still feel self-conscious about how much I _don’t_ own every year when I bring my things back to Watford.

I set up my laptop and plug my iPod in to play through the speakers before setting to work on my duffle. The next thing to come out is Baz’s suit I borrowed at the wedding, stashed in a garment bag from the cleaner’s shop near the care home. (Since I borrowed the suit, it only seemed fair to have it cleaned. He’ll complain that whoever did it wasn’t expensive enough, I’m sure). I hang it in his wardrobe away from everything else and go back to my own thing.

Just as I’m setting out my pants, he bursts in. “What the fuck are you listening to?”

Well, that’s a silly way to say hello. “Music,” I reply, deciding to be smart. “Welcome back, Baz. How are you doing? Your suit is in your wardrobe. I had a good summer, thanks. Yes, there were more goblins. Yes, I killed them—” that’s a lie, “—Yes, I had to—” another lie, “No, I didn’t get any blood on your suit.” That’s the truth.

He blinks at me and repeats his question as though I hadn’t said anything at all.

“Bucks Fizz?” Is he too posh for Eurovision? “It came off of your iPod, Baz.”

“This came off a joke CD Niall made me when we were twelve. It’s not real.” That might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard Baz say. Just because a song isn’t deep and introspective doesn’t mean it’s any less real. “Don’t tell me you spent the whole summer listening to it. How did you even _find_ it?”

“It was on a playlist called ‘This is Disgusting.’ Good playlist, actually. I didn’t know you liked The Spice Girls.”

“Oh my God, you listened to the whole thing? _The Thong Song_ was on that playlist.”

I shrug. “Whatever, I liked it.”

“Aleister fucking Crowley, an entire library of good music and you find only the bad songs I own. You’re impressive, Snow, I’ll give you that.”

“ _And you’re an impressive cockstain,_ ” I growl under my breath.

Baz doesn’t respond to that. Instead, he launches off into asking me about Ebb (who I should really make more of a point of seeing this year, now that I think about it). He had a breakthrough with learning who Nico is over the summer, and apparently Nico is the brother Ebb is always crying about. Then it turns out Nico is a _vampire_ who went and got himself Turned on purpose, which somehow makes Baz think he would know more about the vampire attack that killed his mum. And then it all takes a turn for the worse when he tells me that a Watford headmaster sealed away the nursery’s memory of the attack, likely to hide who Nico is.

I know what Baz is implying. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.

“I thought you got past this obsession with the Mage,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Now you think he killed your mum?”

“You said it, not me.”

I cross my arms. “No. ‘S not the Mage. He’s a good person.”

“Do you really want to rehash this argument?” Baz sighs. “He’s _used_ you. He treats you more like a weapon than a person. He ignored you all of last year and you fell apart, and then he takes you goblin hunting and everything’s all right again? Do you truly trust him so much that you won’t even consider he may know something?”

Oh, so now it’s gone from “the Mage killed my mum” to “the Mage may know something about how my mum died.” Merlin and Morgana, we should not be having this conversation when we’re both this tired.

“It’s not my fault you don’t trust anyone!” I snap.

“Maybe that’s because no one has proved themselves worth trusting.”

Oh.

If a record were playing right now, this would be the moment where the needle skips over a bump and scratches hard over the vinyl. Baz has said incredibly hurtful things to me over the years, but this? I feel like I’ve been Turned, and the pain from the puncture wound plus venom surges through my whole body.

My iPod clicks over to “Take a Chance on Me.” Ha.

“Snow—” Baz starts to say, but I’ve got no time for him. I’ve got to get out of here before I start blubbering and let him know how much it actually hurts. He can’t know. I yank on a hoodie and pull the hood up, not looking his way and mumbling something about going to see Penny.

****

Avoiding Baz is surprisingly easy once I fall into the pattern.

I’ve always woken up way before him, so it’s a matter of hauling myself up and out of bed to set my morning routine in motion. We still share classes in seventh year, but he usually sits behind me in those classes, making that a non-issue. Every spare second of my day is spent with Penny, right up until she tells me that I do, in fact, have to go back to Mummers for the night or risk some kind of magical eviction (“It’s not the same for you as it is for me when I come see you,” she reminds me).

One night I do fall asleep in her room completely by accident studying for a quiz. The second night is on purpose (and I don’t get pitched out into the moat or anything). On the third night, Trixie decides to turn it into something of a slumber party.

Because Penny has complained about how annoying her roommate is since at least second year, and because Trixie always seemed to be gone with her girlfriend Keris whenever I’d visit, I’ve never gotten to know her very well. I do get to know her during our slumber party, though, and I think I love her. Not romantically, but fondly. Everything about her is infectious.

“Oh my God, your _freckles,_ ” she breathes for the fourth time in an hour, setting down her can of Coke to trace her finger over my cheek. The little bells hanging from the points of her ears jingle. “How do you have so many?”

“Just grew them like that, I guess.”

“Easy, Trixie, you’re glittering everywhere.” Keris points out the trail of soft silver pixie dust snaking across the bedroom floor. Apparently the color of pixie dust tells you a pixie’s emotional state like a mood ring. Silver means ‘wide-eyed wonder’ according to Trixie. According to Penny, it means a day’s worth of sweeping.

“And your _ears_. You have, like, the most perfect earlobes I’ve ever seen. Not too thick, not too thin, not super droopy.” Trixie tugs on one, and I think I’m starting to understand why she might get on the nerves of someone like Penny. She doesn’t have much concept of personal space—maybe it’s a trait of her species. “Ugh, you should totally have them pierced. They’d look fantastic.”

“I don’t think I’d mind that,” I blurt out. “Piercing, I mean.”

Trixie squeals, “ _Really?!_ ” at the same time Penny, who’s been avoiding the three of us by sitting up on her bed and reading, says in a warning tone, “Simon…”

“What? I’m seventeen, it’s not like I’m not old enough.”

“I can do it for you if you want! I did all my own piercings, it’s super easy, oh my _gosh_ , this is gonna be great!” Trixie hovers—actually hovers, her tiny wings really can lift her off the ground—and flutters over to her wardrobe, rummaging inside of it.

“Simon, are you really thinking about this?” Penny closes her book and sits up more fully, her stockinged feet dangling down next to me.

“’Course,” I say. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“This all seems like a lot of change for you in a big hurry. First you’re avoiding Baz and staying out of your room all night, now you’re getting your ears pierced—”

“And it’s a slippery slope until I’m smoking cigarettes and hanging out in leather bars? Come on, Pen. Besides, if I don’t like them, I can always take them out.”

“But hopefully you will,” Trixie cuts in, swabbing off the piercing needle with peroxide and eyeing up my left earlobe. “Now hold still, this won’t hurt long.”

That’s not true—it actually hurts worse than Baz dislocating my shoulder in third year. Trixie explains it’s because pain can’t filter out as easily from cartilage as it can from muscle, meaning my ears will feel tender for a while. I think the studs look all right: simple gold balls, nothing too fancy. Trixie tried talking me into getting matching bells like hers, but I politely turned her down. (“Maybe next time,” I told her, which made her nearly explode with glitter.)

I keep catching myself in every mirror I walk by at every opportunity, turning my head this way and that like a glamour model getting the perfect shot. The most I ever do to change up my appearance is shave my curls down at the start of each summer, so this is completely new.

“You don’t like them,” I say when I catch Penny giving me the side-eye in the mirror hanging on her wall.

“I didn’t say that. I just don’t get _why_.”

I shrug. “Not everything needs a reason.”

The earrings catch Baz’s attention, too, when I finally surrender to going back to the room. (Penny ended up evicting me on account of how I “cannot keep sulking” at her dorm, which is only fair.) I’m still not going out of my way to speak to him, which is driving him mad. We’ve resorted to talking through our eyes and music choices. His gaze is a constant presence on my back, and he makes a great show of looking away whenever I turn my head, like he wants to be caught. This game gives me a weird little thrill every time we play, even if I don’t get the object of it.

He finally breaks one day when I’m out on the Great Lawn with Penny, Trixie, and Agatha. “I need to talk to you,” he demands, a long shadow towering over the four of us.

I make a point of squinting up at him, despite his silhouette quite literally blocking out the sun above. “All right. ‘Bout what?”

“That conversation we had on the first day back.”

We walk together toward the football pitch, me leading the way, while he tells me about visiting the nursery again (seriously, we must somehow _just_ miss each other every time we go to the Weeping Tower) and talking to the hares, who confirmed that the Mage asked the nursery to hide itself. This, in Baz’s mind, means the Mage must be involved in his mum’s death somehow. I know exactly how he thinks the Mage was involved, but I’m not going to be the one to say it.

“I think Nico knows something, and I want to talk to Ebb,” he says firmly.

“You can’t just show up and grill her about her vampire brother. She’s sensitive, she cries a lot.”

“Brilliant, so you’re perfectly matched.”

Why does he insist on always being a prick? “She’s my friend. You can’t go in there and start throwing around accusations.”

“This is my _mother_ ,” Baz snaps, his eyes going slate gray. Now I know he’s angry. “Crowley, Snow, I don’t give a damn about her sensitivities! Her brother knows something about my mother’s death. He could be the reason I am what I am. Who cares if I make her cry?”

“I care!” I yell. “I’m not going to let you bully Ebb because of your vendetta against the Mage!”

Baz folds his arms. “Is this about that trust comment? Because I do trust you. No need to be so sensitive about it.”

If only I could believe him.

“I’m not being sensitive!” My palms start to charge with electricity. “Why are you like this? It’s like the second the Mage comes up, you turn into this awful fucking person. That’s not you, Baz. Why can’t you get past it? I got past you always trying to kill me!”

“It’s about my mother,” he repeats.

 _Don’t lie to me._ “It’s always about the Mage with you.”

“Look who’s fucking talking! You shut down the moment he comes up. He’s got you whipped like a dog when he doesn’t care about you. You know that, right? You’re a tool to him, you’re nothing—”

I don’t need the reminder. I know all of this about the Mage, because I’ve spent far too much time thinking about this when I should have been sleeping over the summer, right before he summoned me to hunt goblins. That empty, nagging feeling haunts me, knowing that I don’t count for anything to him other than a means to an end. But that doesn’t mean I need the fucking reminder, least of all from someone like Baz. At least I know he’ll never see me as anything other than pathetic. 

Honestly, I don’t mean to push him that hard. All I do is gently shove, and I think the electricity cracking in my hands does the rest, knocking him hard down to the half-frozen ground.

“Fuck you,” I snarl, but it rings hollow. Let his own brain supplement something more cutting. I’m done.

****

Freezing someone out is beyond difficult. Freezing someone out when you’re living with them? Nearly impossible. (Thank Merlin for headphones, though. They help a ton.)

Truthfully, I’m not all that angry about what Baz said about the Mage. It’s more or less the same shit he’s spouted off for years, starting back when we were just kids and I was sure he was repeating whatever anti-Mage rhetoric he heard at home. What hurts more is he said this _and_ brushed off his no-trust comment like it meant nothing. I’ve given him everything I can to make him see that I can be trusted. I want to be his friend, and maybe something else I’m too scared to ask about yet. But he clearly doesn’t want that.

So until he develops a conscience and apologizes for being an insensitive twat, I’m not talking to Baz.

I will, however, talk to anyone and everyone else. Penny is always open to chat about anything (I think she appreciates my expanded interest in homework, honestly, and it does help to talk things through that I don’t quite get), and Niall is good for a laugh in the dining hall over breakfast. Dev still doesn’t say much to me, but we’ve never been terribly close. I make a point of saying hello to my professors when I walk into class, and I wave at some of my other classmates when I pass by them in the hall. Anything to show that it’s not me with the problem, it’s him.

Agatha even starts talking to me again. She kept her distance after the breakup, which was only fair, and we didn’t say much to each other at her aunt’s wedding over the summer. One morning she started sitting with all of us at lunch again as though she never left, and that’s how it’s been ever since.

“Baz tells me you two aren’t speaking,” she mentions one day after Magic Words. Baz had kept casting some spell that made giant shining bubbles float all throughout the classroom, but I ignored him.

“Oh, he’s talking to me. I’m just not answering.”

“Can I ask why?”

I glance around. Most everyone is filtering off to other afternoon classes or to early tea, leaving us mostly to ourselves. Baz lingers at the end of the hallway, watching both of us intently. I roll my eyes at him and grab Agatha’s hand. “Yeah. C’mon, let’s go someplace private,” I say, loud enough for him to hear.

We end up three floors up in front of a giant window overlooking the Great Lawn. Bright orange leaves scatter over the grass, tossing about in the wind. Agatha sits down on the dusty upholstered velvet seat and tucks her legs under her, then looks up at me.

“Well?” she asks.

“He doesn’t trust me. We got into a bit of a fight the night I got back to Watford, and he said the reason he doesn’t trust anyone is because he hasn’t found anyone worth trusting. How else was I supposed to take that?”

“That doesn’t necessarily include you by default. Baz…” Agatha smooths her skirt out over her knees. “Sometimes when he gets upset, he blurts out things he doesn’t mean to say.”

“How? How do you say things you don’t mean to say? There are several steps between you thinking something and you saying something, which is far too much time for you to _not_ mean it at least a little bit. I don’t get it,” I throw my hands up in the air. “I really don’t. Everything that comes out of my mouth is honest. I don’t always get the words quite right, but my intent is still there.”

“It’s a defense mechanism, I think. He’s like that when he gets flustered.”

“What does he have to be flustered about?”

“You were late getting back to school, Simon! He was worried about you. I spent about half that day before you came back with Baz on the Great Lawn, and he was so agitated I couldn’t get him to listen to anything I said. I even tried getting him to sit down and listen to music on my mobile, but even that didn’t work.”

 _Baz was worried about me._ I shove that thought into the back of my head for later and try to ignore the swoop my stomach makes.

“I want him to trust me,” I whisper. _So badly_.

“Then maybe you should ask him to.”

“We are both talking about Baz, right? The same person who won’t give you the time of day if he thinks you’re a waste or he’s in a mood. I can’t just _ask_ him to trust me. He demands proof for everything.”

“I think if you ask him right,” Agatha says with a twist of her lips, “Baz is willing to give you anything you want.”

And there it is: the hunch I’d had for a long time, yet wasn’t willing to admit to myself. There have been moments when I’d wondered whether there was something more behind the weighted stares between Baz and me, whether his barbed comments meant to push me away were his way of asking me to come closer. None of that cancels out the times he’s been truly awful to me, or the searing envy I felt when I walked in on him and Niall napping together, sharing a kind of intimacy I so desperately wanted.

If Baz wants proof he can trust me, then I’ll help him work out the mystery behind his mum’s death. Not because I want him to fawn all over me in the end, but because it’s the right thing to do. It’s what a friend would do. And above all else, I want to be his friend if I can’t be anything else.

“There’s something else I want to talk to you about, actually, while we’re here.”

I snap my head up and blink. “Yeah?”

“I’ve done some thinking since we broke up—don’t get any ideas, I’m not suggesting we get back together—”

“Not where my mind was going,” I cut in, and I’m surprised by how honest that statement is.

“When we were together, and we’d try to be, you know, intimate,” Agatha explains. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, Simon. You’re handsome and charming and extremely affectionate, so it has nothing to do with you. But every time we’d get close to something, my brain would just…flip over to static. I’d go through the motions, kissing and all that, but none of it felt real. I know you don’t see fireworks every time you snog, I’m not naïve. I’d let it go on for a bit so you’d feel happy, but for me, I felt nothing.”

“Merlin,” I breathe, “I didn’t, like, accidentally molest you or anything—”

“No, no, it’s not like that! I enjoyed the actions, the kissing and the handholding and the cuddling. Whatever it is you’re supposed to feel when you do all that with someone you care about? Not there. It’s nowhere. Anyway, I’ve done a lot of reading lately and, um,” she bites her lip, “I think I’m asexual.”

A beat of silence. Two beats. Three.

“Oh,” I say, because I’m masterful at in-depth, thoughtful responses when someone comes to me with earth-shaking news.

“I know that’s a lot to take in! Believe me, I’m still wrapping my own head around it.”

“So all the times I thought you were just bored—”

“I promise, Simon, it’s nothing you did. All of this is on me.”

This is not where I was expecting this conversation to go. “I’m, er, I’m glad you told me.” Yeah, that seems to be the right thing to say. “Figuring stuff out about yourself is hard, and sometimes you get so deep into yourself that you get stuck in a loop. So sometimes it’s better to talk it out so you hear what you’re thinking, if that makes sense.”

Agatha nods. “It makes perfect sense.”

“Not to steal your thunder or anything, but since we broke up, I’ve been doing some thinking, too. About myself. I haven’t really done any research, and honestly I only heard the word literally four months ago from Niall—”

“You’re bisexual.”

I freeze. “How did you know?”

“Niall doesn’t exactly hide that fact about himself. I overhear enough in class about he likes Craig Stainton’s hands, and he’s flirted with girls before. But you…” She trails off, eyes tracing over my face. “I think it fits you, too.”

“I love you. Loved you. I mean, I still love you, just not like that anymore. What I felt for you when we were together, though,” I say, taking her hand. “It wasn’t something I made up to convince myself I wasn’t gay. I know it was real. This is more like tipping the scales to the other side, but I still feel balanced.”

“Have you told him?”

“Who?”

“There must have been someone who made you realize your sexuality.”

“Uh, I’m definitely not at that stage yet.” There are still some mornings where I wake up and think that Agatha and I are still together. (Not in a longing sort of way, more in a ‘I’ve got to meet her for breakfast’ sort of way. An obligation.) I’m a far cry from confessing my feelings to Baz, provided he wouldn’t run away from me first. Or snap my neck.

Agatha smiles and pats my leg. “I’m sure you will be soon. You’re not afraid of feeling.”

No, what I’m afraid of is hurting people because I feel too much. But I don’t feel up to correcting Agatha, not when she’s being supportive. Not when we’re having the most mature conversation I can ever remember us having. Instead, I swallow back the fear rising in my throat and smile back.

“You’re right. I’m not afraid.”

****

For a while, I keep on as I have been. At every opportunity, I throw up music as a barrier between us; there’s rarely a moment of the day where I don’t have my headphones in. Baz’s music library is far deeper than I ever knew from his record collection, and I seize the chance to explore it all and find my favorites. The “This is Disgusting” playlist that kept me sane over the summer gets rolled out of rotation in favor of other things. Prince (I don’t know why Baz doesn’t play Prince more often—maybe he’s too funk for his taste). The Beatles, particularly their later albums, and George Harrison’s solo work. Some of The Kinks and The Clash and The The. Smatterings of other stuff that Baz has played in the room over the years. And of course, plenty of Queen.

(There are nights when I can tell Baz doesn’t approve of my music selection. He really hates “Creep,” but I swear it’s not a statement aimed at him.)

I should have known one night that my luck would run out. My headphones kept crackling after I used them as a makeshift weapon against the goblins, and the crackling grew louder as the outer coating on the wire peeled away. I ignored it as best I could, turning up the music louder and fiddling with the bass settings on the iPod to drown out the problem. When the peeling got to be too much, I’d cast **_“Good as new!”_** and the coating would curl back into place for a night or two.

I should know better at this point than to use a Band-Aid fix, especially when it comes to magic.  

“No,” I whisper when the sound cuts out in the middle of my nightly listening. Right in the middle of Simon and Garfunkel. “Shit. _Shit._ ”

Baz rustles on his side of the room. I don’t have to look over at him to know he’s gazing through the dark at me. Fuck, now he’s going to be pissed off.

“What did you do?” he asks, voice thick with sleep.

“They’re broken.” I gesture at the headphones with my lit wand tip. “I tried to fix them and I made it worse.”

“Magic doesn’t work well on technology.” The lamp clicks on, and Baz sits up across from me, his long legs dangling over the edge of his bed. “How’d they even get like that?”

Oh, so he did notice the goblin blood. I quickly explain the situation (since I guess I forgot to do that after our fight on my first night back), and Baz doesn’t seem so much annoyed as mildly impressed. Then I try to give him back the iPod, but he’s not having it.

“Here,” he says, throwing a brand-new set of headphones at me from his desk. “That’s the last free pair. I’m charging you after this.”

I can’t help but stare at them. He must know that I’ve been using the music to avoid talking to him, right? And here he is, in the middle of the night, basically giving me permission to keep doing that. But I realize, right then and there, that I don’t want to ignore him anymore. We’ve shut each other out enough over the years. Time for me to let him back in.

“Thanks,” I say while he shuffles back to his bed. “’m sorry I’ve been a shit friend. I know you just want to find out what happened to your mum.”

He blinks at me in half-speed, or maybe that’s my imagination. In the lamp light, his gray eyes look incredibly soft, unguarded.

“It’s fine,” he replies, and I can hear the conviction in his voice. “Sorry I’m…me.”

_Baz…_

“It’s all right. I don’t mind…you.”

That’s not exactly telling Baz how I feel, but it’s a start. Before I say anything else vaguely incriminating, I plug in my headphones and click over to something I’m sure Baz has listened to only when I’m not around. I also only listen to it when he’s not around. Leonard Cohen’s voice has a way of seeping into your bones and making you feel like only he and you exist—it’s very private. He begins humming about the baffled king composing hallelujah, and I settle into my pillows, feeling more at peace than I have in weeks.

****

Sometimes I think Ebb has the best idea on how to live. Out by herself in a simple house, close enough to people where she can go see them if she wants to, and surrounded by creatures who don’t care how powerful of a mage she really is. If I make it through this Chosen One business, this will be my retirement. Watford doesn’t need two goatherds, though, so I might have to find a new animal to manage.

Baz looks thoroughly uncomfortable picking through the grass to avoid half-frozen piles of dung, his face locked in a cringe. (I told him to wear the clunky black boots his aunt bought him over the summer that he hides under his desk, but he didn’t listen.) I bend down to scoop up a brown baby goat with floppy ears, and he looks unduly horrified.

“How can you not like baby goats?” I ask him.

“The smell is revolting, for one thing.” Baz wrinkles his nose. “For another, they’re positively demonic.”

“That’s just how their eyes are. Look, she likes you.” The kid is trying to clamber out of my arms and onto Baz’s shoulder, probably because he’s the tallest thing out here in the field. Baz, on the other hand, looks torn between wanting to pet her and wanting to drain her dry.

“I wish I could return the sentiment.”

“’Lo, Simon!” Ebb waves at me from among the sea of goats and wades her way over to us, staff in hand. “Who’s your friend?”

I introduce the two of them to each other once Ebb gets close enough. From the way her eyes soften when she gets a good look at Baz, I get the distinct feeling that she knows who he is. When we get inside the barn and settle in with our mugs of tea, my suspicion is confirmed.

“We’ve met before,” Ebb tells Baz, sitting down on one of her kitchen chairs with a creak. “You wouldn’t remember, though, you were so small. Hid behind your mum the whole time. Headmistress Pitch said you didn’t like people much.” She lets out a short laugh. “I don’t much like people either, so I didn’t mind.”

“You knew my mother?” The tension in Baz’s shoulders that’s been pent up since we left the room eases out, and he leans back against the couch. Good. He’s planning on staying a while.

“Not well. But she gave me this job. Was incredibly kind to me, your mum. Helped me out quite a bit, especially after my brother Nicky passed.”

Baz’s face lights up at the mention of Nicky’s name, and I shoot him a warning look when Ebb starts sniffling. _Don’t push it._ He glances back out of the corner of his eye and sucks idly on one fang as if to suggest he’ll bite his tongue. Good.

“I suppose she was just trying to keep me out of trouble. Always told me not to worry about what came next. Told me I was perfectly all right just as I was.”

“She’s why I’ve come, actually.” Baz’s voice is unusually light. “She and…your brother.”

Ebb’s face shadows over in an instant. “I haven’t spoken to him,” she says, gripping her staff tighter. “No matter what people say. And it’s not a crime to miss him. He was my twin! I didn’t go with him, but I can still miss him.”

Oh hell, this is going sideways faster than I thought. I snatch another biscuit out of the tin and cram it in my mouth. The goat I’d been sharing with lets out an annoyed bleat, which I ignore.

“I’m not concerned about that. Of course you miss him, you’d be mad not to. He was your brother.”

Ebb blinks, thrown off guard. I know exactly how she feels—the way Baz cuts right to the point with his observations is enough to disorient anyone. “You’re just as sharp as your mum,” she chuckles after a moment, “and just as dark, I suppose.”

“Thank you,” Baz nods. That’s a weird compliment if I’ve ever heard one. “I believe you when you say you haven’t spoken to him. But I wonder if you might know where to find him.”

“You don’t want to go down that path,” Ebb shakes her head. “What Nicky did—”

“—is not why I’m here. I think he knows something about my mother’s death, something that _someone_ has been trying to keep hidden for years. All I want is to ask him questions. No one ever needs to know.”

I can sense Ebb is getting more and more worked up, so I take the opportunity to jump in before she boils over.

“Ebb.” I put my hand on her shoulder. “No one talks about your brother, I promise. No one whispers about you, really.” Which is true. I think I’m the only student at Watford who makes an effort to come and visit Ebb, save for the times when I’ve brought Penny along. Otherwise it’s as if she doesn’t exist.

“Really?” She seems shocked that her life of being a hermit has led to her being, well, thought of as a hermit. Then she comes back down to earth. “No, Simon. I’m sorry, but I don’t want either of you messing with this. Your mum,” she looks pointedly at Baz, “would kill me if she knew what I was doing. Plenty of people don’t want you poking at this hornet nest.”

 _Back off_ , I warn Baz with my eyes. _You’ll get her all worked up. Then she’ll be too far gone to tell you anything._

“Please just tell me where to find him.” Baz’s voice is the gentlest I’ve ever heard it, barely above a whisper. “It’s not for me, it’s for my mother. I’m aware there are…people who don’t want me to know.” He pauses, and we all know who he’s referring to, even if I’m still a bit reluctant to admit it. “But I’m prepared to take the risks. If you could get answers—if you could get understanding—wouldn’t you want it?”

He unclasps his hands and spreads them out in front of him, palms up. Like a man begging. Ebb looks him up and down, tears already tracking down her cheeks in rivers. She’s sizing Baz up, calculating the risk of helping him and the reward. Her thunderhead of magic builds around us all, thickening the air like I do right before I go off.

And then, just as quickly as it started, it stops. Ebb sniffles and blots away the water in one eye. “Look at me, I’m a mess,” she says shakily. “Simon, I left my scarf out by the fence. Would you get it for me?”

I immediately flash back to that meeting with the Mage last spring, where he sent me out of his office so he could talk to Baz. This time, though, I don’t get the sense that I’m being punished. No matter how much I want to help Baz with unraveling this mystery, there are still some parts that I know I can’t touch. Things that he has to handle by himself. Knowledge I don’t need to have. Because it’s still about his mum, after all.

So I play stupid and nod along, pushing through the goats to head back outside. The wind’s picked up, and I wish I’d brought along a scarf of my own. _Fuck_ November.

“You lot really need to learn to make way,” I lecture the goats, who ignore me and continue on with whatever they want to do because they’re goats. Maybe one day I’ll have a strong enough grip on my magic to move the herd with my hand, no spell required.

Ebb’s scarf, a monstrous rainbow of a thing, is wrapped around a fencepost and half-buried in the muck. A good chunk of fringe is missing, and I strongly suspect a rather smug nanny chewing her cud a few meters away is the culprit. I yank up the scarf and try to cast **_Spic and span!_** , but all I manage to do is make it smoke like I shot a gun through it. Great.

Ebb doesn’t seem to mind, though. She takes the scarf back from me and enlists my help in stoking the fire once I get back inside, perky as ever. Baz, for his part, barely moves from his spot on the couch, fingers drumming the side of his tea mug. He stares into the fireplace while Ebb and I fall into easy conversation about the latest matches she’s watched on her contraband telly.

“You said you were born in Wales, right?” he asks me an hour later when we leave Ebb’s, hands thrust deep in our pockets and collars turned up because it is, as she said before, colder than frozen tits out here. The sun’s dropped down below the hills, and I’m ravenous for dinner.

I shrug. “That’s just what I assume. Only going on what little I know. Why d’you ask?” We talked about this two weeks ago when Niall and Dev were camped out in our room, arguing over music. That’s when I learned Baz is Egyptian (half, but still, _wicked_ ), and when I corrected him on me being from Lancashire. He looked like he swallowed a bucket of eels at the mere suggestion that I might be Welsh, but I was too focused on ignoring him to think much about it.

“Nothing.”

“Baz.”

“Seriously, it’s nothing.” Baz waves a hand. “Ebb said something about how she felt a major magical disturbance emanating from Wales about seventeen years ago. Most magicians can feel events like that if they’re powerful enough. I mean, the Petty family is powerful, don’t get me wrong, but maybe she imagined it.”

“You spent an afternoon with her and you still think she’s barmy for living alone with goats, don’t you?”

“Not exactly what most sane magicians would choose for a life path.”

I brush that comment aside and press on. “She told you about Nico, didn’t she? About where you might find him?”

We’re walking straight into the wind now, and his long black hair is stripped back from his face. If I didn’t know him so well, I’d miss the nearly invisible nod of his head.

“All right,” I say. “Okay.”

“Okay?” He turns to look at me, some of his hair blowing across his forehead in a dark wave.

“Yeah. That’s what you came to learn, innit? You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I’m helping you, whether you still want it or not, but some of this…it’s your own thing. I get it. Nico is something you have to handle by yourself.”

Something like understanding passes between us, and Baz’s mouth twitches up into something resembling a grin.

“Thank you, Snow. For coming with me today.”

“No trouble at all,” I reply, grinning back. “Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back before my arse freezes shut.”

“Sounds like a personal problem to me.” Then Baz takes off running across the field, the prick, fast as his footballer legs can carry him. I tear after him, snowflakes puffing down into my eyes.

****

He comes just before midnight, right after I’ve managed to drift off to sleep.

(Penny says I shouldn’t assign a gender to the Humdrum since we don’t know if a magic-sucking force is capable of formulating and presenting one, but I call it “him” so I feel less guilty about calling him a bastard.)

His presence barely prickles at my skin before I sit bolt upright in bed, headphone dangling out of one ear. The Humdrum is at Watford. He’s at Watford and about to drain every student asleep in their dorms. _Fucking hell._ I’ve got to get out there.

But first.

“Baz!” I stagger out of my blankets and hobble across the space between our beds, clapping him on the shoulder and shaking. “Humdrum. Baz, get up, it’s the Humdrum.” He doesn’t have to fight with me, he just has to get the fuck away from here. Go someplace where he can be safe.

His full body shakes awake with a gasp. “What—?”

“Humdrum. Here. We have to get out there.” I should find my boots and yank them on, but there’s no time. Frostbite on my bare feet is a problem for future Simon to worry about.

“Wait—Snow! Take this!” Something heavy and black flies at me from Baz’s desk, and I catch it and pull it on without hesitation. His leather jacket. Sleeves are too long, but the shoulders fit like a dream. And his aftershave hangs heavy around the collar. (Can’t be distracted by that now.)

I’m a madman barreling down the stairs and out the front door of Mummers Hall, then out across the Great Lawn. Everyone else tries to flee the dry vacuum the Humdrum brings to a place; I follow the pull of it as it grows stronger and stronger toward the Wavering Wood. The drawbridge is up, but all I have to do is blink and it falls open to the ground with a spray of snow.

“ _Snow!_ ” Baz yells after me, but I can’t look back. Other people are starting to crowd out onto the Great Lawn, panic rising. If I had any faith in my ability to cast a spell and run, I’d try “ ** _There’s nothing to see here!_** ” to herd them back inside, but I don’t. There are far bigger priorities at hand.

“Simon!”

 _He called me Simon,_ I think as I crash my way through the Wood.

The sucking is luring me to a clearing, one that I’ve gone past before but never stepped into. Seven oak trees surround it, and the grass inside waves with a constant breeze despite the leaves on the trees never moving. I always give the clearing a wide berth, like I do with the fairy rings I find scattered throughout the Wood. There’s something very off-putting about it, though I can never decide exactly what it is.

Tonight, there _is_ something clearly off-putting there. A woman in gleaming white hovering off the ground stares at me with blank eyes, beckoning me silently to come closer. So I do, with the Sword of Mages summoned at my hip.

“You decided to come, Chosen One,” she says in a paper-thin voice. The grass under her feet flutters. “Alone as always.”

“Who are you?” I demand.

“All alone. Always alone, Chosen One.”

Fine. If she won’t answer questions, she’ll answer to my sword.

I pull the Sword of Mages out of its sheath and slash out, only for the blade to pass right through her torso with a whisper. Ah. She’s all gossamer and mist. Brilliant.

“You cannot kill me.” Now her voice deepens to a distant roll of thunder. “I cannot die so easily. How difficult that must be for you, a boy made to kill. A boy born for bloodshed. What does a boy like you do with something he cannot maim?”

What the fuck is she on about?

“I have seen your heart, Chosen One. I’ve seen your fears. What you see at night, what you feel in the dark. When you are alone.”

Why now of all times did I leave my wand behind? I’m not good with impromptu spell casting, but I could have at least come up with something to blast this wretched woman away. Is she a ghost? What does she want?

“Simon!” Baz dashes up behind me, and I realize he must have been crouched behind one of the oaks at my back. I’m not sure if it’s a good thing that he’s here or not. At least he has a hope of using his magic.

“You cannot help him, monster,” the woman whispers, turning toward Baz. “You could not help your mother. You can barely help yourself. You’re weak, weighted down by insecurities. What use could you possibly be?”

“Don’t talk to him like that!” I snap. Baz may be many things—a snob, an arrogant prick, a downright bastard at the worst times—but he’s the farthest thing from a monster.

Agatha and Niall show up next, with Baz begging them to get back. Niall comes up on my right side and mutters **_“Easy come, easy go”_** to banish the woman from the clearing, but the spell phases right through her body like my sword.

“You really thought that would work.” The creepiest half-smile stretches across the woman’s face as she blinks at Niall. “You need to be better, or else people will keep leaving you. You’ll be alone. Unloved. Untouched.”

“No…” I can feel Niall shaking next to me. “That’s not true!”

“But it is. You’re alone, and you know you always will be. Sometimes you remember a time when you weren’t alone, when you shared your mind and body with another. The demon kept you company. And for a time, you forgot how empty you truly were.”

A streak of fire comes from my left, Baz holding an open flame in his palm. “Leave him alone!”

“It would be better if you turned the fire on yourself, as your mother did. Rid the world of your mistake. You know it’s what she would have wanted. Turn into the flames, instead of living as a creature who always wants. Always hungry. You want so much, don’t you? Too much.”

“Oh my—” Baz throws a short laugh up into the frigid air. “It’s a phobus! It’s feeding on fear and self-doubt. Well, bring it on. Whatever you say to me, I’ve done ten times worse to myself already.”

“How is it doing this?” I ask. “I just feel…awful.”

“It feeds on fear and self-doubt.”

“Do you think he’d be proud of you?” Great, now I’ve got the phobus’ attention again. “He won’t be unless you destroy me. The Chosen One must always win, because a tool never fails at its job. And that’s all you are to him: a tool, something to use. A weapon, not a boy.”

I glare at the phobus from behind my eyelids as I reach deep inside for my magic, willing it to bubble up to the surface. Under many other circumstances, I would avoid going off at any cost, but I think this thing isn’t going to leave us alone until I obliterate it. If my sword can’t do the trick, then a magical nuclear blast should.

“Snow, it’s not real.” Baz claps his hand on my shoulder, and the sudden touch distracts me, forcing my eyes back open. “The more you give in, the stronger she’ll get. None of this is real.”

What is he _on_ about? Everything she’s said so far is true, pulled from my own head and the heads of everyone around me. Of course it’s real.

“He won’t listen to you,” the phobus hisses at Baz. “He doesn’t need you, and he doesn’t want you. How could he? How could he ever love you back? How could someone so alive love something dead?”

Baz’s hand jerks away from me like he’s been scorched. Niall’s screaming at the phobus and throwing a new spell, and Agatha’s yelling at Baz about what to do, and Baz’s repeating the same bullshit line of _it’s not real_ , but I hardly process any of this. All I can think about are two things.

Baz loves me. And he’s terrified I don’t love him back.

Merlin and Morgana. Nicks and Slick. Simon and Garfunkel.

Holy _shit_.

The phobus is working over Agatha now (she’s never been good at hiding she’s scared, no matter how much of a brave face she’s putting on). Niall is still shaking, though he’s a bit steadier on his feet than he was a moment ago, fist clenched tight around his wand. I don’t want to look back at Baz yet. I can’t.

I try reaching back down for my magic again, but this time, a thought streaks across my mind: _Use a song._

(Sometimes when I listen to music in the room, my magic sort of skates over my skin like static electricity. Not like I’m about to go off, but like it’s there and ready to use at a moment’s notice. Pleasant as a warm wool jumper. If I was a normal magician, I think that’s how my magic would behave all the time.)

I frantically search my mental playlists for something, any scrap of melody or tune, because the phobus is eyeing me up again and she needs to get polished off now. A wall of sound bursts into being—a Bowie song that Baz played a couple days ago, because what else in times like this?

 _I’ve nothing much to offer,_ I sing in my head. _There’s nothing much to take._

“That’s not what I’m scared of.” I straighten up, gripping my sword tight, and look the phobus straight in her milky eyes. “I don’t think that.”

“But you do,” she replies. “The Mage does not care for you, Simon Snow. He cares only about what you can do for him. No one wants Simon Snow. Not the Mage. Not your parents. Not the blood eater. All anyone wants is the Chosen One.”

Baz is calling weakly from behind me, but I shut him out and try to think of the next line in the song. _I’m an absolute beginner, but I’m…_

“You need magic because it’s all you have. What is left of Simon Snow when the magic is gone? Who would want Simon Snow without his power?”

 _I’m an absolute beginner._ I fall to my knees. _But I’m absolutely sane._

“Snow, listen to me!” Baz’s voice is as panicked as I’ve ever heard it. “These are your doubts and fears. Please, Simon, _look at me!_ ”

I spare him one glance, and my magic spikes like a fever. He’s completely distraught, hair spilling everywhere, trousers soaked with snow up to his knees. Every breath comes out in a huff, curling up into the night air. I take it all in, everything that is Baz Pitch. The vampire—no—the punk—no—the boy who loves me.

_As long as we’re together, the rest can go to hell._

The phobus rambles at me some more, something about how the Mage will toss me aside once I’m finished. She tells me I’m a failure, a mistake, an unnatural existence. Baz screams for me to look at him, as if that will help, but I can’t. Not yet. I rock back and forth, stoking the magic inside me to a head.

I deny her lies once, twice, thrice. On the fourth time, I go nova.

Blue shockwaves of fire rip through the clearing. The phobus is swallowed up in the center by her own column of flame. Agatha and Niall hit the snow behind me with a yell, and I realize I probably should have given them a bit more warning. I know Baz knew enough to get down, because he’s been with me more when I’ve gone off.

_Baz._

He’s standing in front of me, a complete wreck. “Simon.”

I reach for my sword and shove myself back onto my feet, sinking the blade into the hard earth and then yanking it out again. “She’s gone. Finished.”

“What she said, it—it wasn’t true. She was pulling from your fears.”

“But she told the truth about what we fear, yeah? Those are things we think.”

For the first time in seven years, I’ve managed to strike Baz speechless. His mouth hangs open, eyes darting around to anything he can see other than me. Even his face flushes a deep pink (he fed just before we went to sleep), and he slaps a hand over one cheek trying to hide it. Merlin, he’s adorable.

“Yes or no, Baz.” I feel like I’m passing a note to my crush in one of those bad teen movies we’ve watched in Cultural Studies. Only I already know what the answer is. I’ve plucked all the petals from the metaphorical daisy, and the last petal says _he loves me_.

He says yes, face scrunched up so he can’t look at me. Then he starts rambling, denying everything the phobus said, because if Baz is nothing if not allergic to his own emotions.

_I absolutely love you._

I let him go on for another minute, and then I give into my impulse. The Sword of Mages goes flying into the snow as I grab his jumper, go up just a bit on my toes so we’re eye level, and kiss him hard.

_I absolutely love you. But we’re absolute beginners. With eyes completely open, but nervous all the same…_

Baz’s hands slip against the back of my leather jacket (his leather jacket, but I feel like he might surrender it to me now) as he pulls me in closer. I swear he’s about to pop his foot when I tilt my head and drop an arm to go around his waist. Fuck the phobus—Baz is the furthest thing from dead. He’s alive, alive, alive.

And because he’s alive, we have to separate for air. I’m not ashamed to admit that I pant a little (because he knocks me breathless).

“Right,” I whisper. “I might be a bit gay.” I’m not getting into the whole bisexual thing in the middle of this freezing clearing right now when there are far more interesting things we could be doing.

Baz’s eyes are dancing. “I hate you,” he says with a grin, then pulls me in for another kiss. One of his hands comes up to cup my jaw, tentative, and his thumb brushes over my cheek. Of course he’d be brilliant at all the small gestures from go. I’d hate him for it, but there’s too much else crowding out space in my heart.

“Oi!”

The speed at which Baz snaps his head around to glare at Niall is almost comical. I can hear a hiss working up his throat, and I squeeze him closer reflexively to make it stop.

Niall jerks his head back toward the forest. “Mage!”

Fuck. Baz and I spring apart as fast as possible, sparing each other only a single glance (if I look at him any longer, I’ll probably tackle him into the snow). The pounding of feet reaches my ears, and the Mage bursts into the clearing, followed by a small army of other students and teachers. He stares around imperiously before latching onto me.

“Simon!”

I know what I have to do now. I have to traipse along behind the Mage to his office and get battered by a million questions while I’m far too exhausted to think clearly. Baz will have to go back to the dorm alone, and he’ll be subjected to a million questions if the look on Agatha’s face is anything to go by. All I want is to walk hand in hand with Baz back to our room and fall asleep to music. I’m sure he wants the same.

But we each have our parts to play. And we’ll have time later. There’s always later.

 _Wait for me,_ I ask with my eyes as I turn to walk toward the Mage, my bare feet dragging through the snow. 

Baz folds his arms and tilts his chin at me. The little quirk of his mouth says _you know I will._

****

It’s nearly two o’clock by the time I make it back to the room. The Mage interrogated me up and down until I’d had my answers whittled down to bare basics. No, I had no idea the phobus was there in the Wood, only that the Humdrum was at Watford and I could feel the presence. Yes, I was sure it was a phobus and not something else. Yes, I blew her up by going off. No, I had no idea what happened after the flames—I assumed that was the end of it.

Apparently, this is not the end of it. We’ll have to wait until most of the student body is awake to see the full effects, but all the fear and anxiety devoured by the phobus has to disperse somewhere, and it’s not like fear floats on the wind. More likely than not, it’ll all settle over the school.

I don’t want to worry about any of that now. I don’t want to be a hero. Right now, I just want to sleep and see Baz.

The floorboards creak under my feet (the Mage offered me tube socks in his office, so at least I got warm feet out of the ordeal) and I make my way over to Baz’s bed, where he’s curled up on his side and sound asleep. He’s changed his jumpers for a hoodie, one that I’m sure he nicked from me.

“Are you awake?” I ask. I don’t want to push.

His eyes crack open and blink. It takes a moment for him to register that it’s me, but then he shifts and wiggles back toward the wall, lifting the corner of his blankets in silent invitation.

I don’t hesitate for even a moment. I wiggle in next to Baz, grateful to be lying on warmed sheets.

“Warm,” he mumbles, tugging me closer so we’re chest to chest.

“Yeah,” I laugh breathlessly. “That I am.” I can’t say the same for him: even with the hoodie, he’s only about room temperature, and the crook of his neck looks delightfully cool. I make a move to nestle in there, only for him to stop me with his hand.

“No?”

“Not yet.” Baz tilts up and presses a soft kiss to my forehead. “Now ‘s fine.”

“You’re a right sap.”

“Shhhhhhh. No fighting. Sleep.”

I like this sleepy, matter-of-fact Baz. (Who am I kidding? I love all the versions of Baz.) Before I settle in, I return the kiss to his forehead and wrap my arm over his back so he can soak in my warmth. To hell with tomorrow. What matters, all that matters, is here and now with him. 

Unfortunately, tomorrow comes. It’s barely sunrise when I peel myself away from Baz, who turns into a limpet when he sleeps and will not let go of me. I finally manage to slip out of his grasp and tug my boots on so I can clomp over to see the Mage again. (The blue jay pecking at the window for a solid 15 minutes to get my attention somehow didn’t wake Baz up. A miracle.)

“Term will be ending early,” he informs me, cape swishing behind me as he paces around his desk. “I’ve been consulting with Dr. Wellbelove all through the night, and he seems to think you exploding the phobus will have…unintended consequences on the student body.”

“I thought you were waiting until everyone was awake,” I say. “Sir.”

“ _Waiting is generally not the best course of action when it comes to these sorts of things._ ” Dr. Wellbelove’s voice sounds tinny on speakerphone. “ _Ideally, everyone should have been evacuated last night, but given the hour—_ ”

“Dr. Wellbelove, there wasn’t anything I could do about the explosion! She was terrorizing my friends—”

“ _I don’t blame you, Simon. You did everything you could with the information you had. That’s all anyone can ask._ ”

The Mage is trying to meet my eyes, but I ignore him. Why couldn’t I have had Dr. Wellbelove for a mentor instead?

“I’ll make the announcement later today. And Simon, you’re going to the Wellbeloves for Christmas. I assume you’ll be able to accommodate him on such little notice, Doctor?”

“ _Of course. Simon is always welcome here._ ”

I’m not getting a choice in the matter. I don’t even get to explain that Agatha and I are broken up, and that spending nearly three weeks with my ex-girlfriend and her parents would be beyond awkward. Because once again, I’m something for the Mage to shuffle around until it’s convenient for me to be trotted out again.

Merlin, I’m done with him. But I’m too exhausted to argue.

The rest of the day is a blur. I spend most of it in the Mage’s office, listening to him field phone calls from the Coven and other concerned magicians, occasionally jumping into the conversations when he needed me to say something. Most of them didn’t seem as annoyed with me blowing up the phobus as they were about a phobus being so close to school grounds. “ _That thing could have killed someone!_ ” an old woman screeched at the Mage, and I can’t help but agree. It’s not like students are outright banned from the Wandering Wood—anyone could have stumbled upon it by accident one day and been sucked dry by fear. He’s supposed to be protecting us from creatures like the phobus. Though I suppose he’d have to actually be _at_ the school enough to actually care about protecting anyone first.

When I finally get back to the room, every nerve in my body is rubbed raw. “Waves of Fear” is blasting through the room, and Baz is spread out on his bed like a starfish. The blankets are still drooping onto the floor like they were this morning, which means he didn’t bother to remake his bed.

“Bit on point, don’t you think?” I jab my thumb at the record player. Lou Reed’s distorted guitar is grating on my ears.

“Believe it or not, it makes me feel better.”

“Can you at least turn it down? I’ve got something to say.”

Baz rolls his eyes and hauls himself up to pick the needle up off the vinyl. “All right, then,” he sighs. “Go on.”

“The Mage asked the Wellbeloves to take me.” I duck down and reach under my bed for my duffle so I can start packing, but mostly because I don’t want to look him in the face right now. If I do, I think I might burst in the worst way. “Dr. Wellbelove was here to talk about the phobus energy—” I can’t believe the Mage dragged him to Watford so he could explain everything he’d said over the phone in person, too, “—and he’s just going to take Aggie and me back tonight.”

A different song comes on, this one from Baz’s Bluetooth speaker. I don’t recognize this band, but the lyrics are so pointed at me that I feel directly called out. _You know the change will do you good/I’m kissing you goodbye._ Fuck Baz’s encyclopedic music knowledge.

“So this is goodbye, then?”

I chance a look at him. He’s leaning against the door, arms crossed and chin raised up like I do when I square off against something. Doesn’t he realize that pretending not to care proves that he cares way too much?

“Yeah, I guess.” _I don’t want to go. This wasn’t my choice._ “Aggie will let me borrow her phone. I can text you, yeah? Or call?”

“That could be nice.”

Merlin, I’m going to make Baz feel his emotions if it kills him in the end.

I don’t think about crossing the room and taking his hand. All I think about is kissing him once, just once, to let him know that this isn’t goodbye. Last night wasn’t a fluke, and, if he’d let me, I’d like to keep on kissing him when we get back to Watford. This isn’t me kissing him goodbye—I’m kissing him hello.

Still, I pull back after a couple seconds to give him space. I’m no more than a step away from Baz when he’s pulling me back in for another kiss, arm around my waist. He doesn’t let go of my hand; instead, he squeezes it tighter.

“I’ll call you tonight,” he whispers after another minute. “And every night after that. Wellbelove will have a conniption. I don’t think she believes we’re…you know…”

“Us?”

“Yeah. Us.” Baz’s entire face relaxes for a moment before his eyebrows arch back up. “Hang on. This isn’t proper.”

Before I can ask him what he means, he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his mobile. I see him flick through his impossibly large Spotify library before landing on something he finds suitable. One tap, and Freddie’s voice fills the room backed by a slow drumbeat.

_Oh my love, we’ve had our share of tears_

_Oh my friends, we’ve had our hopes and fears_

_Oh my friends, it’s been a long, hard year_

_But now it’s Christmas…_

“Oh, I see,” I say, nodding at the Bluetooth. “Had to set the mood to something more romantic, did you?”

The softest tinge of pink rises on Baz’s cheeks (he must have fed earlier when I wasn’t around). “Fuck off.”

“Do you actually want me to fuck off?”

“Never.”

“Didn’t think so.” And I press my lips to his.

Thank God it’s Christmas, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SONGS FEATURED IN THIS CHAPTER:
> 
> “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” – Green Day
> 
> “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours” – Stevie Wonder
> 
> “Mamma Mia” – ABBA
> 
> “Making Your Mind Up” – Bucks Fizz
> 
> "Take a Chance on Me” – ABBA
> 
> “Hallelujah” – Leonard Cohen
> 
> “Absolute Beginners” – David Bowie
> 
> “Waves of Fear” – Lou Reed
> 
> “Damaged Goods” – Gang of Four 
> 
> “Thank God It’s Christmas” – Queen 
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~  
> Thank you to everyone who's read this. It means more than you know <3
> 
> You should come visit me on Tumblr @messofthejess for more Carry On shenanigans ~~and maybe tempt me to write more Rebelverse stuff.~~
> 
> See you next time~

**Author's Note:**

> SONGS FEATURED IN THIS CHAPTER:  
> “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” – Queen
> 
> “Golden Slumbers” – The Beatles
> 
> “When Doves Cry” – Prince
> 
> “Train in Vain” – The Clash
> 
> “Bizarre Love Triangle” – New Order
> 
> “Cello Song” – Nick Drake
> 
> “Honesty” – Billy Joel
> 
> “Father Christmas Give Us Some Money” – The Kinks
> 
> “Liar” – Queen
> 
> “God Only Knows” – JR JR


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